John He

Professor Creaney

English 21002

10 March 2020

Classroom Observation 

With the task of observing a class and taking notes, I first had to decide on a class to take a seat in. This was a relatively easy task, as I had planned from the start to observe a random class in the lecture hall, Aronow theater, located on the first floor of the North Academic Center (NAC) building. The main reason for choosing to go to Aronow theater for my observation was the fact that the lecture hall is huge and the professor would most likely not notice nor care if extra people snuck in. 

During my free time on a Tuesday morning, I had decided, was the best time to pay the lecture hall a visit, as I had no classes in the morning. This was a fresh experience for me because the morning on campus was very quiet and peaceful. Walking into the building, there was almost no one in the lobby of the NAC building as opposed to the bustling afternoons that I am accustomed to. 

Upon entering room 1/214, I saw a typical lecture hall; rows of red seats descending onto the wooden stage with red drapes on the side. On this stage was the microphone, a wooden podium, the screen, and the professor. I noticed that everyone was already situated and not many people were coming in so I presumed that I was probably slightly late to the lecture. Unsure of whether attendance was taken or not, the population in the lecture hall was fair. Though the class was not jammed packed, it was safe to say that the majority of people were still attending. I took a seat in the very back row and saw the powerpoint being projected onto the screen. On the bottom corner of the screen was the name Kevin Foster followed by ECO 10350 and an email address; Professor Foster was teaching an economics class. 

At first glance, Professor Foster seemed professional just from his appearance, as he was wearing a suit and tie and wore rimless red glasses. He had a thin body frame and looked to be in his 30s-40s. His voice was not too loud, but was projected well enough such that I, who was sitting in the back, was able to hear him. While the professor was going over course materials in the front of the lecture hall, a student in the front raised her hand to ask a question. The professor seemed quite eager to explain himself again. Despite the several questions that the student had, the bulk of the class consisted of only the professor talking, which I thought was normal for a lecture course. As the professor was using the slides as a teaching guideline, he went in depth to explain the pictures and charts on the slides and gave the impression that he had been comfortable and experienced in the field of business and economics.

Looking around the class, I decided to pay some attention to what the students were up to. The first thing that I noticed was that a majority of people were not paying attention to the class. The girl sitting next to me had her phone out texting, while another girl a couple rows ahead of me was on Facebook on her MacBook. I also saw several people watching Youtube with their earbuds on while some others were playing games. If I had to estimate, I would say that about only fifteen percent of the people in the room were actually paying attention to the lecture and using their devices as intended for the course. Whether Professor Foster did not notice or does not care, he just proceeded the lecture as if everything were normal. A pattern I noticed in the class was the division of students based on attentiveness. People who were at the front rows were looking at the screen more often while people incrementally towards the back were focusing on their individual activities. 

From a personal standpoint, it was extremely easy fitting into the class because the class lacked interaction between students. Though there were several back and forths between the students and the professor, there were barely any between the students. Besides the lack of interaction between the students, the large amount of students also made it easy for me to dissipate into the class. 

As the class was progressing, my eyelids grew heavy and the words from the professor started to sound muffled. Soon, I realized that I had started to epitomize the majority of the students in the class and my attention started to drift. In this condition, I figured that staying in the class was pointless as my ability to observe the room was now futile. I then moved myself to the library where I could take a nap before my afternoon classes began.