Community Engagement Project: Reflective Journal
Introduction:
Throughout our teaching careers, we will find ourselves on most occasions, with very
diverse classrooms. Whether it be background, race, culture, neurodiversity or different learning
styles, we as teachers need to find different ways and strategies to serve the needs of our student
population and make sure that our classrooms are welcoming environments for all our students.
It is said, “students benefit immensely from instruction taught from a culturally responsive lens.
By tailoring the instruction to include learners’ cultural backgrounds, teachers hope to meet
students’ academic, social, and cultural needs.” (Mburu, J. 2022). On this community
engagement project, I will observe different studies with many different disabilities. I will have
the opportunity of observing them in different environments as well like the general classroom or
the resource classroom; during push-ins or during pull-outs. I believe being situated in a military
school where there are students coming from many different backgrounds will give a lot of
perspective as well.
Summary:
Culturally responsive teaching is an evidence-based approach that creates links between
students' cultures or heritage, with learning material. Incorporating elements that form part of the
student’s life, can open them up to be interested to learn, and engage them in lessons. When
students care about what they are learning, they are far more invested in the lessons and
academic outcomes. “Teachers can successfully integrate culturally responsive practices by
utilizing students’ cultural knowledge, frames of reference, and prior experiences to make
learning relevant and engaging” (Mburu, J. 2022). Throughout my observation experience, I was
able to identify some strategies like these used in the classroom. When the teacher read to the
students she would often make pauses and provide examples that the students might relate to or
sometimes she would ask the students if they could provide examples as well. In a school such
as the one I observed it could be challenging to provide culture specific content since there are so
many students from different backgrounds; but teachers did their best to make sure students were
understanding materials, and especially the language since a large part of the population has
other first languages (mainly Spanish).
Journal Entries:
October 5, 2023
On this day, I will be observing several students, but will focus on 2: Jonah Oquendo (7th
grade)ADHD and Lucas Montalvo (1st gradeSLD). During ELA class the students must do silent
reading for the first 20 minutes of the class. During this time, Jonah took out a book but did not
really read much. Instead he seemed to doze off a bit. After reading time, the students were
instructed to work on a packet they had been working on during the week and answer the part
of comprehension questions. The questions were from a book called The Cay. Jonah was
behind in his reading; he had barely read the first chapter and was scrambling to look up the
answers in the other chapters without having read them. He was joking around a lot with one of
his classmates and seemed disinterested in the class. I tried to advise him to read an extra
chapter before answering and that would help him out m. The general concept was literacy
stations so after 20 minutes students switched and it was Jonah’s turn to vocabulary, which
seemed to come a lot easier for him and he completed that part well. After that, he transitioned
to answering a graphic organizer. Even though he did not have all the information he needed to
answer because he hadn’t read enough he managed to answer part of it with what he had heard
the teacher discussing during previous classes and with the help of his classmates that were in
his station. During this class and throughout the stations, I could clearly see the different
strategies the teacher used and was able to discern what were some of Jonah’s strengths and
weaknesses.
An area where Jonah shined was Band. I learned he had been in band class since last year and
really enjoyed it. He played the saxophone beautifully and seemed very engaged throughout
most of the class. I also accompanied Jonah to Seminar class which is basically where students
catch up on unfinished work, read, or do homework. During this time, I reminded Jonah he had
ELA work to finish to which he was not delighted to hear, but responded well and sat down with
another classmate to work on it together. I noticed he works well and more engaged when he is
working with someone who is on task.
During the afternoon, I had the opportunity of meeting Lucas and accompany him to art class. I
learned this is Luca’s first week of class in this school and that he is still in the process of
adjusting since he is new to the special education program as well. During art class Lucas was
very impatient. He wanted to have all the markers for himself and draw whatever he wanted
without waiting for the teacher to give instructions. I immediately noticed there was a language
barrier because when I spoke to him in English he wouldn’t answer or his answer would not be
according to the question asked. The art teacher does not know a lot of Spanish but tried her
best to communicate with Lucas. During the class I also noticed Lucas had a lot of behavioral
issues. He would not want to share; he would flip off his middle finger to other classmates, push
them, and even curse. Every time he seemed to have an issue I tried to redirect his attention to
something else or nicely point out that we don’t do these things in our school. Surprisingly after
hesitating a bit he eventually listened and was more calm towards the end of the class. I later
learned that I would be working with Lucas again during the week.
*Side note( My hour with Lucas was supervised by Ms. Beniquez this day. My hours observing
Jonah were in different classrooms and not supervised by the same teachers which is why I did
not count those hours towards my total. Still, I wanted to include my observations as I thought
they might be interesting and relevant towards the rest of the Project).
October 6, 2023
Today, I was in the Resource Classroom for most of the morning. Since Lucas is new to the
Special education program, he needed to take some pre-test that would help the teacher
identify his needs and develop his goals. I had the opportunity to sit with Lucas and assist him
during these tests that lasted 3 hours (he had breaks in between). I could help Lucas by reading
to him but could not give him any clues. Since Lucas is impatient, we used a behavior star chart.
Every time Lucas completed a part of the test without any behavior issue, we would add a star
to the chart. When he had 4 stars in the chart, he was able to have a bouncing ball break which
is his favorite reward. Sometimes he will ask for a play doh break instead. I noticed Lucas
behavior in the resource classroom was significantly improved compared to the day before. The
only difference is that today he worked mostly on his own. I believe his behavioral issues are
more when he needs to share and socialize with other peers. The resource teacher says they
will be working on reinforcing his behavior and also working on temporarily assigning him an aid
for both behavioral issues as well as his language barrier. This will help Lucas adapt in the
general classroom. In this classroom I was able to observe other second grade students with
Autism. These students were partially non verbal; one Rodrigo, had speech difficulties and
would only answer yes or no questions or read a text but you could not always tell what he was
saying. The other, Moises, actually spoke clearly but only answered questions only in short
memorized phrases. He also displayed echolalia, repeating most of what he heard. Both were
doing their math assignments without any help and pretty fast. Both seemed smiling and
cheerful but did not make much eye contact.
November 3, 2023
Almost a month later, I had the opportunity to work with Lucas again in his general classroom.
He has seen me around school and most times he sees me he immediately hugs me. I was
surprised to see that he is better adjusted in the classroom. He still had some moments where
we had to correct his behavior but he was much more receptive to correction. He also has his
aid now who helps him a lot in his daily transitions from different classes and helps translate. He
also seems happier in general. Also in the 1st grade classroom, there is a student with ASD
called Vivian. Vivian was evaluated and diagnosed last year when teachers raised concerns to
her parents because she displayed symptoms like lack of communication, hand flapping, and
not getting to the bathroom on time and having “accidents” often. In the classroom, Vivian
seemed very engaged and enthusiastic about participating during the class. She could answer
questions and understood most of the material. The only thing she seemed to have issues with
is remembering to raise her hand to speak and interrupting the teacher when she was talking.
Aside from her ASD, I could see her speaking out of turn as eagerness to show that she
understood and wanted to participate. The teacher did not mind. She would smile, answer
Vivian, and lovingly remind her to raise her hand and wait. She was also excited about being the
class helper today. She helped pass out notebooks, collect worksheets, and hold the door for
her peers as they went out or inside the classroom. She performed her helper duties very well
and seemed very proud of herself.
Conclusion:
During this Community engagement project, I had the opportunity to observe a very
diverse population; Diverse in their language, neurodiversity, learning capabilities and learning
styles. I was especially intrigued by the different ranges of the Autism Spectrum I was able to
observe. I could see how one student could be nonverbal and the other could hold up complete
conversations and participate in class aloud. I was also surprised at the change in Lucas’
behavior in less than a month from the first time I saw him. I could understand that no matter the
disability or special needs of every child, if there is one thing they all benefited from in their
school it was structure and consistency. When they are given routines and they feel like they
know what they should do, they are enthusiastic about different parts of their school day. I also
loved that every student had a way of participating and community. I enjoyed the environment of
inclusion in all the classrooms I visited and am very grateful for this experience.
References
Mburu, J. (2022). “All Children Matter”: A Preservice Teacher’s Understanding and Practice of Culturally
Responsive Teaching in a Third-Grade Mathematics Classroom. International Journal of Multicultural
Education, 24(1), 27-46. https://doi.org/10.18251/ijme.v24i1.2623
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