Jeremiah Beaver

Dr. Wargo
Edu 415
24 October 2022
Interview Assignment
For this project I interviewed Mrs. Turley from Central Valley Middle School. Mrs. Turley is a

former Geneva graduate and has been teaching Social Studies courses for around 20 years. I have

had the pleasure of spending the last 5 weeks in her classroom for field observations.

1. What specific courses do you teach? To which grade levels? (i.e., a math teacher might teach

11th grade geometry)

I teach both a regular and honors course that focuses on the origin and history of various cultures

and their impact on the world today. I teach a couple of “reading skills” periods each week.

During these periods, I teach students ways to become better readers and gain strategies to

become more proficient in reading. I primarily teach 7th grade students for both classes.

2. Describe your teaching style and how you accommodate the different learning styles within

your classes. What is one specific example of differentiated instruction in your classroom?

The main way that I do this is by getting all kids as involved and engaged as possible. I receive

all the special needs and learning disabilities students, so I am used to having to integrate them

into the class and modify my lessons to accommodate them. The main way I accommodate is by

the pace that the class goes and the expectations for students. Certain classes like the honors will

go at a much faster pace and will be expected to complete assignments like essays and open-

ended questions regularly. My regular classes only write two essays and year and many more of

the assignments are guided and fill-in-the-blank based.

Other than the textbook, in all my classes, we use websites like Junior Scholastic and Newsela to

find online articles that we read. Sometimes we will read AR books, but they are always digital

copies. The main way that supplementary texts are used in class is to help review information

after a lesson and reinforce what was taught before students take an exam or begin a project.

4. How have the Common Core standards changed your teaching? Do you focus on reading

more now than you had in the past? How do you balance the content you are teaching, and

the literacy skills students need to comprehend that content?

The biggest impact that Common Core had on my teaching was when we had to create both a

new curriculum and a textbook. Both items had to follow the standards that were laid out and

address all the relevant topics. There is more of an emphasis on reading now, but it is only

successful in my honors classes. In my opinion, students are expected to reach a much higher

reading level than is possible and many struggle. I do my best to incorporate as much reading as

possible in each class to help develop students' reading skills. I also teach “reading skills” to

students twice a week to further grow students’ reading abilities.

5. Describe some of the classroom strategies you use to respond to struggling readers in your

classroom. Specific examples for before, during, and after reading? Do you use graphic

organizers? Can you name specific organizers you use in your teaching?

A: The main technique that I use is out-loud reading. When students repeatedly hear me

pronounce words they are unfamiliar with first, they are much more successful when reading. I

also will use different reading guides during readings to guide students through texts and identify
main points. Other than that, most of the reading methods that students are taught are in their Ela

and Reading classes.

6. Do you use any discussion practices in your class: i.e., book clubs, Reciprocal Teaching,

Think-pair-share? Do students have an opportunity to talk about texts?

In my honors classes, we will often have discussions about the texts we read. We just do simple

class-wide discussions and talk about the different parts of the texts and think critically about the

material. In my regular classes, it is much more difficult to have discussions because only a few

kids will participate and they dominate the discussion. Many students don’t do the readings and

are not familiar with the material being discussed so they are silent and do not get involved

unless called upon.

7. What role does technology play in your classroom? If you use online text, how do you

support students in navigating that text?

Each student has a school issued iPad that gives them access to the online textbook and all their

assignments. Everything that we do in the classroom uses technology in some way. When

reading an online text, we read the text together as a class and I will take breaks to further

explain the ideas and facts that are written.

8. Content areas have discipline-specific vocabulary. How do you teach vocabulary in your

class? How do you choose the words to study? Do you include actual vocabulary instruction

or do students study words for homework?

Vocabulary is only taught in my honors classes. Since we made the textbook, we found it very

difficult to create a limited list of words that appealed to all students, so we did not include one.

Throughout the past couple of years, I have created lists of words for each of the chapters that
the honors students study. I have tried to teach the vocab to my regular classes, but they refuse to

study them and forget it immediately after taking their exams. I will make it a priority to

regularly use certain words and phrases that are important to a topic so that students will become

familiar with the vocabulary of the textbook through repeated exposure.

9. Do students write in your classes? What are some examples of writing-to-learn strategies

used in your teaching?

I try to have students write as often as possible so that they develop and become more confident

in their writing abilities. I have students' complete outlines for all their papers and connect the

material they are learning with material they already know or recently learned in another class.

Additionally, even though all schoolwork is done online, I have students take handwritten notes

in class and do notebook checks throughout the semester to make sure students are writing down

important information.

10. How do you make your content culturally relevant for your students?

I like to have students research current events so that they can see how the things we are learning

about influence their lives. I also have “why it matters” sections at the end of each unit to show

students the relevance of the things they are learning.