Alec Peek

History 463, Dr.Slaughter

18 May 2018
Student Observation #2

For my second student observation I was able to attend a high school. This took place
Friday May 18th at Los Osos High School in Rancho Cucamonga California. I had the pleasure
of observing Mr.Lyne’s 12th grade AP Government class at 10 am. Compared to my first
observation the classroom setting is drastically different than a Jr. High social studies classroom.
In this class the walls were lined with the teacher’s favorite music albums organized by year and
genre. Pieces of the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were close
to students, easy enough to read from their seats. I noted that the seating arrangement was
particularly interesting, the desks were split half in half down the center of the classroom, as
Mr.Lyne was able to use the middle of his classroom as the lecture space. At the front of the
class room sat the projected which Mr.Lyne used to showcase his lesson. He was able to
effective transition from the slide of his power point to talking off the top of his head about the
topic he was going over.
The bell rang and the students trickled in with yearbooks in hand. It was hard to contain
their excitement since grad night was at Disneyland that evening and graduation was the
following week. Yet, Mr.Lyne was able to grab the students attention imminently and get them
focused on that days task. The students were going to look over particular court cases that
changed the face of the U.S. Government such as: Roe v. Wade, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Brown
v. The Board of Education. He wanted the students to analyzes the significance of these cases
and how they change government and court rulings for the future. Besides being overactive for
graduation, the students took out their notebooks without question and began with the lesson.
The overall feeling in the room was very respectful, Mr.Lyne gave respect and received it, it was
a very fluid classroom. He used many different teaching techniques throughout his lecture,
videos, questions, critical thinking pictures and slides. He used them all to play to every students
strength. To engage and assess the students learning abilities he used a short debate between both
sides of the class. He chose Roe v. Wade as the debate topic. He went around the room to every
person and asked how they felt and which way the court should have ruled. He asked them to
take every detail into account from a previous lecture. After everyone was done, he concluded
that many people had interesting views on the topic and they should use that type of think toward
all aspects of social science.
Overall, Mr.Lyne did not have any CA or Common Core standards listed anywhere in his
class but it seemed that he did imply the techniques that are outlined within both. He make sure
that students were understanding the material that was being given and also making sure the
students were thinking critically about the questions being posed in the class and about the
material in the lecture. It shows that he is trying to make the effort of teaching students the
standards even though they are all ready to be done with high school. I really enjoyed my time in
Mr.Lyne’s Ap Government class. The class was completely balanced and he had total control of
the time, as well as his class room. I can see why he is a veteran teacher. Even though the
students were ansy to leave and get their weekend started, Mr.Lyne was able to effectively bring
the class to understand and analyze serval importance course cases within the U.S. government.
As a whole, the class was great and I could see why the students hold Mr.Lyne in such high
regard.