Highschool Computer Science Observation
This past Friday, September 16th, I sat in on a Computer Science class at Bloomington South High School. I visited Mr. Pizzo's class with three other girls from my W210 class. As it came closer to the start of class students started filling the room and logging onto their computers to start their daily work. Immediately I noticed that there were a lot more boys than girls in the class. There were only six girls in the whole class. I found this strange because my computer science class at Indiana University only has three boys and the rest of the students are girls. Automatically I thought that when I have the opportunity to have my own classroom I want to promote computer science to girls and teach them that it is not just for boys! Mr. Pizzo came over to us and gave us a little information on what was going to happen in class. He said that the students were working on an unplugged project that would help them understand how to efficiently link objects in a network. Before the project the students were asked to complete a worksheet called the "The Muddy City." This worksheet introduced the concept of networks by having a "muddy city" that needs to be paved, but they have to find the shortest and most efficient ways using the least amount of bricks.
Because the students were working on a project all throughout class the teacher was not actually giving a lecture or doing a demonstration on the board. About half way through the class Mr. Pizzo came over to us and showed us the in class worksheet he was grading. He asked us for advice on how to grade it. He explained to us that he didn't know if he should grade the work based on effort or based on accuracy and correctness. We looked over the homework and saw that some kids really put forth the effort and showed how they came to their conclusions while others just scribbled down an answer and turned it in. While we were looking over some of the homework we noticed that some of the students didn't even complete the assignment while others answers were completely wrong. We pointed out the papers that lacked effort and clarity and he explained that one of the papers was completed by a student who could not speak english and the others were completed by children with autism. I was a little confused when he told us this information and could not understand why he didn't pull these students aside and give them extra help/attention. I think that in order for these students to understand the material and concepts they are learning they need to know what is going on in the class, the teacher should not just let them sit there and flounder.
My experience at Bloomington South truly taught me a lot about what kind of teacher I want to be in the future. I want to be able to reach those students who have a harder time learning than others and help them reach their full potential. I believe that as teachers we have the ability to make every student achieve their goals and I plan on doing this every day in the classroom, whether it is staying after class to help a student with a certain assignment or if it is meeting with them to see why they are not performing to their full ability. My visit to Mr. Pizzo's class has me ready and inspired to teach students computer science and the growing importance it has in our world today. I am truly grateful for the eye opening experience I had at Bloomington South.
Because the students were working on a project all throughout class the teacher was not actually giving a lecture or doing a demonstration on the board. About half way through the class Mr. Pizzo came over to us and showed us the in class worksheet he was grading. He asked us for advice on how to grade it. He explained to us that he didn't know if he should grade the work based on effort or based on accuracy and correctness. We looked over the homework and saw that some kids really put forth the effort and showed how they came to their conclusions while others just scribbled down an answer and turned it in. While we were looking over some of the homework we noticed that some of the students didn't even complete the assignment while others answers were completely wrong. We pointed out the papers that lacked effort and clarity and he explained that one of the papers was completed by a student who could not speak english and the others were completed by children with autism. I was a little confused when he told us this information and could not understand why he didn't pull these students aside and give them extra help/attention. I think that in order for these students to understand the material and concepts they are learning they need to know what is going on in the class, the teacher should not just let them sit there and flounder.
My experience at Bloomington South truly taught me a lot about what kind of teacher I want to be in the future. I want to be able to reach those students who have a harder time learning than others and help them reach their full potential. I believe that as teachers we have the ability to make every student achieve their goals and I plan on doing this every day in the classroom, whether it is staying after class to help a student with a certain assignment or if it is meeting with them to see why they are not performing to their full ability. My visit to Mr. Pizzo's class has me ready and inspired to teach students computer science and the growing importance it has in our world today. I am truly grateful for the eye opening experience I had at Bloomington South.
Im glad that you found it interesting too that there were more guys than girls in the classroom, it is so weird because ours is the complete opposite in our w210 class. I think it is really cool that he asked for your opinion on how to grade because we have been learning the same thing, when I went, he actually taught a lesson the whole time we were there. I think it is so awesome that you got such a great experience out of it and actually learned some ways that you would do things in your own classroom.
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