The School Community

When I walked into TVHS, the first though I had about the school was that it was a very
involved, academic, and motivated school. There were posters everywhere advertising the next
dance, soccer tryouts, or debate team meeting. All the students, before class, were mingling with
each other and I couldnt see any obvious stereotypical cliques like the jocks or preps;
everyone was hanging out with everyone else. Overall, I feel like TVHS is a very open school
that wants to motivate its students to be involved and succeed academically.
TVHS hosts over 24 varsity sports some of which include cheer, cross country, swimming, and
wrestling. Along with sports, TVHS also has many extracurricular activities such as robotics
club, dance, student counselor, and JROTC. The student council hosts dances quarterly,
organizes pep-rallies, and create spirit days. TVHS offers AP, Gifted/Talented, and dual credit
classes for students on top of mentoring and shadowing opportunities. There are counseling
services available for the parents and the students.
Parent involvement is very important to TVHS; the website said that over 7,590 hours have been
logged by volunteers. Parents can be involved in numerous ways like being chaperones, helping
with extracurricular activities, and going to meetings about the school. Parents are kept informed
about the school through the school website, newsletter, and student-made media. Parent
involvement is encouraged by TVHS
To encourage appropriate behavior, TVHS has a code of conduct and behavior expectations
readily available on the website. Also on the website they acknowledge students that received an
award, or did something spectacular.
The overall learning climate is very positive. On my way to my class, I see teachers in the
hallways talking with students or greeting them at the door. I see that the teachers genuinely take
an interest in their students lives and want the students to know that they care. From my time
spent in Ms. Cooneys class, I can see that teachers are doing everything they can to create a
productive and safe learning environment. All around her room there were inspirational posters
and posters talking about the different jobs that require math. Overall, the teachers are
encouraging their students to be the best they can be.
Thompson Valley High School is a part of the Thompson School District which is the 16th largest
school district in Colorado. This is a public high school that includes the grades 9th-12th . There
are about 1,300 students that attend TVHS. In 2014 the test scores for reading were 64%
proficient or better, for math 37%, and for writing 54%. About 22% of the students are on free
or reduced lunch and 25% of the students take at least one AP course.
The mission of TVHS is Students will build skills to: achieve academic and career goals;
contribute to society; achieve an understanding of cultural diversity; achieve self-pride and
confidence; and achieve learning as a lifelong experience.
Students and Classroom

The students that I am teaching are very diverse. The first class is a pre-ap class and those
students are very self-motivated and engaged. These students complete all their work and ask
questions that will further their learning. The second class is a regular Spanish class. There are
many students in this class that are also motivated, but there are also many students that are
talking or not doing their work. The classes I am observing are predominantly white, but there
are a few other races mixed in. Most students in these classes are sophomores or juniors.
From my first day in the classroom, I noticed that many students were at different developmental
levels. Some of the boys were goofing around trying to get the attention of the girls while some
girls were very focused on learning. At this time, the students are at different points of their
development and this creates an interesting culture in the classroom. From the different shirts,
materials, and conversations, I could gather evidence of the different clubs, sports, or other
activities that students were interested in. Some kids were in basketball, Stuco, music, drama,
and different clubs. Most of the students are involved in at least something whether it be at
school or outside of it. There is one student with an IEP because he has a terminal illness and
has to miss a lot of school. Also, there is another boy on an IEP because he does not participate
and he is very emotionally different than the rest of the students.
The culture of the classroom is very welcoming and productive. When I introduced myself, all
the students seemed interested in why I was there and they were very welcoming. The students
are arranged in rows facing the front of the room and cell phones are not allowed. The culture of
the classroom is very productive because Ms. Parkhurst always makes sure that her students are
working on some kind of activity. During the warmup, she would cold call students to make sure
that they are paying attention and understanding the content. If Ms. Parkhurst sees someone
playing on their phone or becoming off task she asks them to continue their work right away. On
the first day, I could tell that the students respect her.
The walls of the room are covered in cultural, geographical, and educational posters. There is at
least one poster from every Spanish speaking country in the world. On top of posters about
countries, there are also posters of cultural events like day of the dead. In the front, there are
posters with the verb endings of the preterit, present, imperfect, and other grammar rules. All the
objects Ms. Parkhursts walls further the learning of the students and they are not too distracting.
Ms. Parkhurst definitely is a very confident teacher that knows exactly what she is doing. Each
day she has a learning target and an agenda and she keeps kids on track the whole class. There is
never a moment wasted in her class because she goes from on activity to the next in a perfect
transition. Students know that in her class, they will be constantly thinking and participating.
For the demographics of the classroom, most of the students are white, but each class has a few
students from different backgrounds. There are not any Africa American students, but there are
many Hispanic and Asian students. Most of the students seem to be part of the middle class
group, but I noticed some girls wearing very expensive clothes so they could be part of the
higher class. Regardless of skin color or social status, all the students seem to get along well
with one another.
The classroom has many posters and Spanish grammar rules posted on the walls. The walls are
completely covered in mostly cultural posters, and I feel that this gives the classroom an inviting

and open-minded. There are cultural posters about Hispanic holidays, and cultural facts from
every Spanish speaking country. I dont feel like the room has too many decorations because I
think that all the posters are meaningful. All the desks are in columns and are facing forward.
Picture of classroom attached.
Topic and Rationale
The novice stage of learning Spanish has already been mastered, and now the students are
moving on to the next level which is intermediate. This semester there are a few new students
but most of the students have been there the entire year. The students have already learned the
present tense and much basic Spanish vocabulary. They are not speaking in one word answers
but forming simple sentences based on grammar rules. Some topics that have already been
taught in my class are the present tense, basic verbs, vocabulary about school, interests, and
home, simple grammar, and very basic cultural topics.
The students already know how to use the present tense, regular verbs, conjugating regular verbs,
and other novice level topics. I am going to be teaching to students the imperfect and preterit
tense this semester and also vocabulary/grammar/cultural regarding the outdoors, traveling, their
childhood and cooking. I know this because Ms. Parkhurst lent me their Spanish book and gave
me handouts of the material they will be covering. The students have mastered the present tense
so they will now be moving on to talking in past tense so they can talk about different topics.
The instructional strategies that I will be using are zoom in, chalk talks, small group
discussions, and show-and-tells. I want to incorporate these strategies into my lessons because I
feel that they are engaging, activate higher-level thinking, and are a lot of fun. When we learn
about how to talk about our childhood, I would love to do a show-and-tell with objects or
pictures that were important to students and students have to describe in past tense why it was
important. During culture lessons, I would like to split the class into groups and have each group
present a different perspective of a controversy. I want my strategies to encourage students to
use critical thinking and also work together in groups.