FieldPost3

What kind of relationship does the teacher have with his/her students?
The teacher that I observed seemed to have a good type of relationship with her students. She was able to communicate with them on a level that didn't make her seem very superior to them. She was also able to show that she was in charge and get their attention when she needed to. The students seemed to respect her and didn't disobey her. She had ask one student to stop talking and instead of him making some face or showing an annoyed reaction, he stopped talking and got back to listening and the work that he was asked to do for that class period. She did a great job of controlling of the classroom when she needed to.

Is it beneficial for students to run more of the class?
The English class that I observed was doing a socratic seminar which allowed the students to run the class and the discussion. The teacher did a good job of guiding them through their first seminar without doing it for them. She was very thorough in all of her explanations and then when it came to the discussion, she stepped back and let the students lead it. She made sure that the students discussion points were factual and that they had evidence backing them up. She also made sure that the students were respectful of others opinions and told them that it was a discussion and not a debate. I think she did this because she wants the students to understand how this type of seminar works and how you have to first respect others and their opinions before you debate one another. Overall, I liked the way that the teacher led this seminar. It was different from the socratic seminars that I did in high school, but I found her way to be very beneficial and a way that allowed every student to have a say in the discussion. Just like discussed in Chapter 10 of Educational Foundations, it's not just about test. This socratic seminar set the students up to develop a higher level of thinking and understanding about the material that they were reading.