The goal of this paper is to analyze what is good teaching through classroom observation and interview happens in a local charter school, combined with lenses we have learned in the Analysis of Teaching class. In order to achieve this assignment, our group, Courtney and I conducted three observations on February 24 th
, March 31 st
,
April 4 th
and two interviews on February 20 th
and April 2 nd
in Sylvan Park Paideia
Design Center.
Our group went to observe Ms. Burns and her 3 rd
grade classroom made up of
15 students with 6 female students and 9 male students. Among the 15 students in the classroom, 7 whites, 7 blacks and 1 Asian contribute to the racial distribution of this class. Students are divided into 3 parts with 2 lines and 3 rows of each part sitting face-to-face. The teacher’s table is in the right of the classroom. The front right corner locates a semicircle table, which serves for group instructions. Ms. Burns is a self – contained elementary school teacher with 5 years teaching experience. This is her second year in Sylvan Park. Before she teaches in Sylvan Park, she taught in another regular elementary school for 3 years.
As you can notice from the name of this school, Sylvan Park is different from normal public elementary schools. Through our observations and interviews, I got the chance to learn more about how the special features of this school effects teaching context and discourses in the classroom. Based on the fact that the policies in this paidiea center greatly influences teaching methods in the classrooms, I decide to choose my first lens as PCK (Pedagogical Content Knowledge). Social language and

identity will be my second and third lenses to analyze how Mrs. Burns apply her teaching philosophy in classroom practices.
First Lens: PCK
Shulman concludes PCK as “an understanding of what makes the learning of specific topics easy or difficult; the conceptions and preconceptions that students of different ages and backgrounds bring with them to learning of those most frequently taught topics and lessons (Grossman, 1990). ” Thus, through the understanding of paidea’s special policies and curriculums, I can recognize how does Ms. Burn cast her own teaching philosophy to make disciplinary topics and concepts much more accessible to students.
In our initial interview, Ms. Burns told us that paideia is a project-based learning school that pays extra attention to good conversational skills, appropriate dialogues and applying what students learn into practice. Besides normal classes, paideia also have seminars every month. During the seminar, students sit in a circle with their nametags. They set goals together and the teacher will host the seminar to make sure everyone get the chance to talk. During our second interview, Ms. Burns answered my question about her understanding of paideia school comparing to regular schools based on her own experience. “As a teacher in paideia, you teach and you coach. In my old school, it was just regular education that focused on communication between teachers and students. But in a paideia school, we actually sit down in a circle and to teach them real world skills.” In the seminar, teachers are working as coaches to lead students to come up with questions by themselves and discuss about the projects they do together.

Even though we did not get the chance to observe the monthly seminars.
During our observation on April 4 th , I got the chance to observe another special course named as Panther Time. Everyday, before school ends, students in the whole school go out of their own classrooms and join in other teachers’ reading or math class to have a chance to learn from other teachers and students from other classrooms.
In Ms. Burns’ panther time on April 4 th
, besides two students from her own class, she also had two students from other classes joined with them together to have a small group reading time. During the panther time, Ms. Burns and the students sat in a circle on the carpets. Students were encouraged to answer Ms. Burns’ questions according to the article they read by raising their hands. For example, Ms. Burns said to the students, “Let’s go one step deeper than that” and “Try a different meaning of the word.” Different from the reading class students have every morning, this special panther time provides teachers in paidea the opportunity to teach students according their needs and abilities. Students are not only taught to reach the standards, but also get the chance to experience deeper thinking and challenge themselves. Ms. Burns also used a computer to mark their scores and on Friday Ms. Burns gave rewards for the winner of this week’s panther time. Students are highly activated to express themselves during the panther time.
While self-contained teachers can help students to link disciplinary knowledge across different subjects, teachers from other classrooms can introduce students a new thinking pattern towards same knowledge.
Under the special instructions I discussed above, I consider that Sylvan Park
Paideia Design Center is a good example of teaching students under “problem-posing” educational system (Freire, 2009). Teachers are no longer the authority. “Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teachers cease to exist

and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers (Freire, 2009).”
Teachers are not only doing the teaching, but they are also coaching the students to become jointly responsible for their own developments. Thus, within the lens of PCK,
Ms. Burns’ visions of good teaching matches with her teaching methods towards her students.
Second Lens: Social Languages
“The apparently effortless and fluid performance of the experts is because of their use of routines that make classrooms appear to function smoothly (Berliner,
1988).” Berliner’s notion of routines tells us that a familiar and safe environment for students in the classroom can help the teaching be more smoothly. During the interview, Ms. Burns told us that she does not like to make rules by telling students
“what you have to do”, but telling them “what you can do” to encourage students instead of forcing them. In the classroom, I noticed that everyday the teacher would write down visual schedules on the whiteboard. She also assigned students different jobs such as class manager, bathroom manager and hall monitor, to let the students be involved in management and be responsible to their behaviors. I also noticed a code of conduct and a “I Can” list on the wall.
In Ms. Burns’ daily teaching, she also encourages “personal narratives” to not only convey knowledge and teaching believe, but in this way she also lead the students to explore new ideas, to negotiate difficult experience and to challenge different point of views (Clark & Florio, 2001). During the interview, Ms. Burns also indicated that she likes to share her own feelings with her students to let them feel that she is “real”. In the class observation, I noticed that Ms. Burns often share with students after her day at work and at home. Then she would encourage students to talk

about their thoughts and experience. “I allow them to feel bad. If you feel bad, you can talk to me. Tell me the reason. Sorry friends, it cannot always be a dog and pony show. ”
Beyond the familiar routines that leading students everyday, Ms. Burns also consider that transition and closure matters a lot in her classroom teaching.
According to Wood (1999), utilizing effective transitions in the classroom helps teachers to minimize disruptions and behavior problems, maximize instructional time, and maintain optimal learning conditions. From our interviews, Ms. Burns considers that “a change of state” is good for the students. She also told us she like to
“keep things short and sweet” to help students be concentrate on the important knowledge. During class, I observed that Ms. Burns use a lot of transitions. For example, Ms. Burns uses clear signals for catching students’ attention. Whenever the teacher calls “Class! Class!”, all students will stop what they are doing and look at the teacher answering “Yes! Yes!”. Then the teacher will give them time minutes and future instruction to let them be focus on what they need to do. I also noticed that once she changed the schedule, she gave students a verbal warning by saying “sorry students, but we need to finish this in 3 minutes.” I also observed that Ms. Burns use her cell phone as a stopwatch to track the class speed. Bathroom is not allowed during class or transitions. Students will have a 5 minutes rest between different classes. At that time, Ms. Burns will remind them to go to the bathroom.
In the interview, Ms. Burns said, “you have to have a closure or students will get confused.” During class, I observed how Ms. Burns make closures. For example,
Ms. Burns said “OK. Take everything we learned about fraction today. We’ve learned about…(Then teacher and students grab their heads) Sprinkle in your hand. And go.
(Clapping hands)” Ms. Burns considers that it is important for students to think about

what they have learned and how those knowledge affects them after they learn new knowledge.
From the scenes I observed in the classroom, I consider that Ms. Burns’ vision of the importance of social languages such as routines, transitions and closures matches her practice in the classroom. Beyond the three social languages I discussed above, Ms. Burns also apply pair study, small-group study and large group discussion.
I will discuss what I observe about grouping discussion in the following lens.
Third Lens: Identity
Gee (2001) argues that students’ identities vary in different dialogues and discourses. On the purpose of instructing students based on their individual needs and abilities, teachers should also learn about students’ identities in diverse contexts.
During our interview, Ms. Burns indicated that she makes sure the students are doing something they like and touching on different learning styles. She also told us,
“You have to be sensitive to the different learning styles of your kids.” Ms. Burns values each student’s ability in different subjects. While some of her students may be advance in reading, some of them may be poor in math. No students are labeled as weak, but students under differentiated instructions with different needs.
During a reading class, she separated students into 3 small groups. She taught the students the same thing in different ways to make sure all of them can understand.
But the students do not know that they are divided into different levels. Group 3, which is “the lower group”, firstly worked with the teacher while other groups working by themselves or in pairs to finish one of the tasks. In the teaching group, the teacher made more instructions, examples and questions to help these lower kids better understand the knowledge before the do the tasks. Then Group 2 would work

with the teacher and other two groups writing the tasks. This time, the teacher checked what they finished and then used examples to further explain the knowledge.
Finally, Group 1, “the higher group” would work with the teacher. The teacher would check both of their tasks, correct their mistakes and give more instructions. Students were allowed to finish their tasks wherever they want. Some of them even finished really quickly and begin to read books by themselves. I noticed that students in Group
1 can finish the tasks by themselves and sometimes they also give instructions to students in other groups. During this whole time, students get the chance to work individually, in pairs and in small groups. By using differentiated instructions, Ms.
Burns helped every student with the new knowledge learning.
During a math class, I also observed a student with special needs. While Ms.
Burns was reviewing fraction by giving students a small exercise, a teaching assistant was sitting next to a boy and helped him to solve the exercise by giving additional instructions. Through the whole class, the boy did the same assignments as other students. The teaching assistant would give him additional instructions in helping him doing individual works. In a science class, I paid my attention on this boy and I did not find any special aids for science or reading class. I consider that the school also tried to support differentiated instructions by assigning teaching assistant to help kids with special needs on certain subjects.
Through my observation, I believe Ms. Burns’ practice in class matches her teaching philosophy of paying attention to each student’s learning style. She values to give students differentiated instructions and her view of help students based on their needs and interests is applied in her student-teacher relationship.

Through this semester’s readings and observations, I achieved a roughly understanding of Ms. Burns’ vision of good teaching. Considering the special curriculum setting of Sylvan Park, I choose PCK as my first lens to analyze how the school level affects Ms. Burns’ teaching methods in the classroom. Then I selected social language and identity as other two lenses to represent how did Ms. Burns organize students’ daily learning in classroom. After observe three different subjects of Ms. Burns’ classes, I conclude that Ms. Burns presents a dialogue encouraged
“problem-posing” class environment for her students.
Due to time and resource limitation, I did not get the chance to observe students’ group working on projects and monthly seminars. Even though Ms. Burns divide students into small groups during reading class, from what I observe those are more likely to be small group teacher-instruction than small group student-discussion.
I wish to observe more about student-student relationship and group working further.

Berliner, D. C. (1988). The development of expertise in pedagogy. Washington, D.
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Clark, C. M., & Florio-Ruane, S. (2001). Conversation as support for teaching in new ways. In Talking shop: Authentic conversation and teacher learning, (pp. 1-
15). Danvers, MA: Teachers College Press.
Friere, P. (2009). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum.
Gee, J. P. (2001). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of
Research in Education, 25 (2000-2001), 99-125.
Grossman, P. L. (1990). The making of a teacher: Teacher knowledge and teacher
education. Teachers College Press.
Wood, C. (1999). Time to teach, time to learn: changing the pace of school.
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