Memo 2: Setting

DelSesto Middle School is located near the border of Johnson and Providence, an intersection of two very different worlds. DelSesto inhabits one of the newest school buildings in Providence: a rectangular, red brick building resting atop what once was a landfill. As you approach the building, a loud buzz echoes after pressing the intercom-- a prerequisite to enter the school. As you walk into the building, you are immediately engulfed in the warm chaos that is the front office: ringing phones, adults running around, and lots of loud Rhode Island accents.

After passing through, you feel a crisp freshness in the air-- the white floors and cool teal lockers really open and brighten up the space. There are college names and logos painted everywhere and include everything from URI, to Harvard, to PC and beyond. There are posters for the school musical and bright new murals freshly painted by the City Arts team.

Approaching room 221, you can see paper snowflakes from Christmas and a poster that says “Math is Everywhere.” You are hit with with a warm, balsam cedar scent-- an attempt to maintain the sensory pleasure of the holidays. The room is filled with math: a number line, math practice posters, a multiplication chart, student and teacher-made anchor charts, and funny math puns litter the yellow and blue walls. There are multiple places for student recognition: a student of the week board, a data tracker with fun stickers, and a cork board for student work.

The desks and tables are arranged to maximize the open space in the room. Students and adults alike are able to move swiftly throughout the room, and students are given three different seating options: tables, small groups of tables, or stand-alone desks. The teacher desk is located in the back corner and is rarely used. In fact, it is often littered with papers and not usable, which never creates a problem as I never usually sit down while I am teaching. Ultimately, I have tried to create a space where students feel comfortable in order to learn and where power is shared amongst students and teachers.

DelSesto Middle School is a 6 - 8 grade middle school with a student population of 882. 94% of students qualify for subsidized lunch, 19% of students receive ESL services, and 19% receive special education services. 79% of students identify as Latinx, 9% identify as African American, 5% identify as White, 4% identify as Multiracial, 3% identify as Asian, and 1% identify as Native American. I currently teach two periods of sixth grade math, two periods of seventh grade accelerated math, and one period of eighth grade personalized learning.

For my research, I chose my third period, seventh grade accelerated math class. This is a class of 16 students, 7 females (44%) and 9 males (56%) and aged 12 - 13. 11 out of 16 of students (73%) are on the online Summit platform and 5 (17%) are not. However, this period does not use Summit because the accelerated curriculum is not on the platform. 2 out of the 16 (12.5%) students are English Language Learners, and are the only ELL students in accelerated math this year. 0% of this class receives special education services and 100% of the class have tested at or above grade level in math according to STAR. Lastly, 12 out 16 students (75%) identify as Hispanic or Latino, 1 out of 16 (6%) identify as Asian, 1 out of 16 (6%) identify as white, 1 out of 16 (6%) identify as black, and 1 out of 16 (6%) identify as multiracial.

This group of seventh graders is particularly mature, both as individual students and as a whole group. They are well mannered and very respectful, and as a class emit a relaxed energy. I know that they all love Takis and candy-- they never let Ms. Davis forget about our candy raffle--, take a lot of pride in their sneakers, and care about their academic success. They are an extremely collaborative and competitive group, showcasing their ability to engage in high level conversations and a strong determination to be the best in the class. As an accelerated math class, they are responsible for mastering both seventh and eighth grade standards. However, despite the inevitable frustration and slight resentment toward me, I am constantly impressed by this class’ ability to persevere and push each others’ thinking at some times, while at others still engaging in the naivety and slight absurdity of middle school life.

From previous experience, I fully acknowledge the need to protect the identities of participants. For one, protecting anonymity maintains the integrity of the research: it removes as much bias as possible for readers. Additionally, participants may desire confidentiality due to the vulnerable aspect of research and its conclusions. I foresee myself needing to protect the identity of my students, both for the sake of research and because they are minors. An effective method is to randomly assign participants a number and refer to them by their number. The key word is “random,” so that an order of any kind cannot be detected by readers.

I have built strong relationships with my students for half of a school year now, which creates a strong bias on my part as a researcher. I have very positive perceptions of each student in this class, and need to approach my research with a viewpoint more similar to a third party observer than a dedicated and loving teacher. I believe that random number assignment will help reduce this bias, only be looking at numbers and not names while making observations. Lastly, I need to be intentional and specific when choosing which data points to focus on. The more specific and focused the data point, the less room I have to be biased.

As I begin to collect descriptive observations, I foresee myself gaining insights about my classroom that I did not have before and perhaps would not have acquired otherwise. As just a teacher, it is easy to get caught up and miss opportunities to see more subtle or nuanced happenings. However, when I start to look for specific pieces of information or data, I will learn more about my students, my classroom, and myself as a teacher. Similarly, as I move into focused observations, I will learn how my decisions as a teacher truly affect my students and their learning. So far, I have used formative assessments and a dependency on my relationship with my students to gauge how my students are doing in class, but this research opportunity will give me more concrete and more focused data to work from.