Middle School Observation

Middle School Observations:

My middle school observation was at Millennium Middle school which is a title 1 school in a brand
new building that just opened this school year. Millenium is a Performing Arts and Pre-IB magnet
program in Sanford. I would spend today in Ms. Gray’s eighth-grade science lab.

Today was actually Ms. Gray’s birthday! She has been teaching for 3 years.
Throughout the day she has one standard class, some advanced and 4 Pre-IB classes.

Her classroom is set up in groups and the students can choose where they want to sit as long as the
groups are pretty even.

Today would be interesting because we would be dissecting frogs in every period! This was so cool
to be a part of this because I am convinced that I saw teaching magic to happen! To prepare for this in
the weeks leading up they had learned about the anatomy of humans and frogs, they had watched
videos and labeled the parts of a frog. Today all that knowledge would come together as they located
all these things in the frog as they dissect it.

Every single kid was super engaged. It was very interesting to see the same lesson repeated
with the three levels of classrooms. The Standard class needed a lot more teacher direction,
reminders to stay on task and help with the directions. The advanced class did better about reading
the directions and more self-directed. The Pre-IB class made connections to the frog that no other class
made. They were able to see how the lungs are similar to human lungs, there were more students using
technical terms like scalpel, incision, and dissection.  

The biggest takeaways from my middle school day are:

Choose which battles to fight. Usually, there is a no cell phone rule but she allowed the kids to

have phones out to take pictures. She said that her cell phone rule is no phones out during lecture.

If you are working and would like to listen to music she is ok with that but don’t ruin it or abuse it.

Understand that middle school is an emotional time. Ms. Gray said one time for her first-period

class they just had a circle where they talked about what was going on with them.

DId that create pressure to catch up, yes, but it also made the class feel more like a family.

Build in cleanup time into your lesson plan. It is not easy cleaning up frog parts and it's gross

and smells terrible. Stay on top of it so when the bell rings you are ready for the next class.

Be nice to the custodian. He is a life saver! We had one kid get sick and have a custodian on your

side for moments like that is priceless.

Don’t be afraid to get messy with the kids. Ms. Gray was right there pulling out frog hearts

with her bare hands working with the kids.