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Erich Hoffmann

Setting and context

The School Community:


The overall culture at Thompson Valley High School is one that is very
student focused. The students are learning in an environment that is focused
around their needs and they are provided what they need to learn. The
number of programs and sports available to the students is just one example
of how student focused the environment is. There are 24 different sports
offered at the school. The only two high school sports not offered are skiing
and hockey. Sports take a tremendous effort on the part of the school and
they are offering a large amount of sports to their students so that all
students can be involved with a sport if they choose to. The students
activities do not stop there though, the school also has 28 clubs that
students can become involved with. These range from anime club to fishing
club and everything in between. Again these clubs all have to have a faculty
sponsor and is a huge undertaking from the staff, but they make sure that
the students have access to as many things as they can. All of these sports
and activities have such a positive effect on student behavior. The idea of
good sportsmanship does not just stop on the field. Those skills can be used
when the students are not in school. There are many clubs that are also
passing on great behavior skills, such as FBLA, FCCLA. Both of which are
leadership organizations that are going to instill positive qualities onto
students. The support for students does not stop with teacher support
though. There are currently three booster groups that help support the
education of the students at TVHS. This shows the great working relationship
between the school, parents and general community.
TVHS is a diverse environment for students to be learning in. The
overall break down of the schools diversity is as follows: 88.9% White, 1.1%
Native American, 8.6% Hispanic, 0.4% Black and 1% Asian. Having talked to
staff at the school this is very different spread of diversity then what the
school was just a few years ago. Currently the school has about a 40% free
and reduced lunch rate. This again is illustrating the changes that TVHS is
going through. This obviously is not slowing the staff and faculty at the
school down though. They are going to strive to meet their mission which is
Building for a new generation. This is exactly what they are doing. Things
are changing in Colorado as more people move here, and TVHS is more than

prepared to handle the changes that come and will continue to provide an
excellent education for the students in their community.

Students and Classroom:


The classroom that I have been placed in at Thompson Valley High
School is a very diverse and great group of kids. It is a pre-AP geo-physics
class taught by Samantha Miller. There are currently 15 boys in the class and
10 girls. Of the 25 students there is one black student, three Hispanic
students and the other twenty one students are white. There are no IEPs or
5045s currently in the class. This class is just a group of standard freshmen,
with any special labels, this does not mean that these students do not have
needs though. A lot of the students are into sports, there are basketball,
baseball, football players, and even a wrestler in the class. Some of the
students need to be redirected more than others. This applies mostly to the
guys in the class, the girls are almost always on task and very seldom do I
ever need to address issues with them. As stated previously these students
are just the cut of the mill freshmen, none of the issues in class are out of the
ordinary. They are all right about where they should be developmentally and
it shows when you start interacting with them. They are goofy and just a ton
of fun to be around and interact with.
The classroom culture is one that is fairly laid back. The teacher is
always asking students questions and talking to them. The students are
always joking with the teacher and having a good time. There is also mutual
respect with the teacher and students. The students know what they are to
be doing and the instructor expects them to be working, but at the same
time the students can have fun while working. There have been a couple of
times that the teacher has even let the students go outside on their brain
breaks for five minutes because they are just dying to be outside. It is
because of this mutual respect that the teacher lets them do things such as
going outside. The physical environment is a fairly standard science
classroom. Black tables and countertops, extension cords from the ceiling to
plug equipment in during labs. The walls are covered in various science
posters or scientist or concepts. There are a few geological record posters,
which fits into the class since it is a physical science class. Overall the culture
and set up of the class is working well for the teacher.

Topic and Rationale:


The students in my class have already covered the properties of the
Earth and earthquakes, as well as, identifying different forms of energy and
how one form of energy can transfer into other forms. They also just finished
learning about kinetic and potential energy and are now moving into heat
transfer. We are going to be covering heat transfer because heat is a special
kind of energy with some very unique properties to how it works. The
students already know that energy can change from one form to the next,
but now we are going to start unravelling how this occurs and what exactly is
going on as these changes happen. The instructional strategy that I would
really like to use with the students is to show them something that surprises
them. The reason that I have chosen this particular strategy is there are so
many great activates that you can do with heat transfer that may bring out
some misconceptions that the students have about heat. Also a day of
demonstrations and activities will be great for them because they have been
doing a lot of note taking and desk work the last few weeks. This also gives
them the opportunity to put what they have learned to good use.

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