1: Description of Students and the Learning Environment:

Special Note: Many teachers, students and interns have completed CTC reports for our pilot studies. Their work has provided the core of the samples below. We have, however, modified some of the selections to maintain confidentiality and to ensure that the samples reflect the revisions we have made in the instructions. Some were completed by experienced teachers, some by interns and others by students early in their programs. Thanks to everyone who helped us with the original samples. Your input helped us make this a better process for all.

Portions of a description fit in a table--see sample below. Other elements might fit better in a narrative.

_____ Middle School is at Title 1 school located in a low socio- economic neighborhoods. Over 80% of the students receive free or reduced lunch. Last year, Governor Bush's A+ Plan gave it a D grade. There are 23 students enrolled in ILAP. One of the most challenging issues in implementing lessons is the chronic truancy problem with about 9 of the girls. Their ages vary from 13 to 16 years old. The lowest reading level is 2.3 while the highest is 9.3. Most of the students are reading and writing below the 8th grade level. Five students' native language is Spanish. Four students attended alternative schools before attending _____. Due to students backgrounds and motivation, it is important that lessons are a hands on experience.

There is the library for the research part of the project. There is also a speaker from the SERVE who came to discuss Workforce Employment Opportunities. The equipment available is a video camera for the interviewing part of the lesson and an overhead projector.

Sample 2

The students at ____ are low socioeconomic, 75% receive free and reduced lunch. The students in my classroom averaged a reading level of 1.2 at the beginning of the school year. This is about 6 months to one year below where they should be functioning at this time. Writing and reading go hand in hand, consequently teaching writing has proven to be a difficult task. This is a continuous progress multi-age school. Children move along a learning continuum according to their developmental level. This is to meet their individual needs.

Sample 3

Step 1. Description- of Your Students and the Learning Environment
Grade Level: K-1 12 First Graders 11 Kindergartners Subject Area: Language Arts
Number of Students: Total: 21 M: 10 G: 11
Class Characteristics: Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian: 20 Hispanic: 1 Number of Students on Free and Reduced Lunch: 12 There are no ESOL Students There are no EMH, LD, EH, SED, or Gifted Students
Students Receiving Services For:
Speech and Language: 3
Type of Classroom Environment: Continuous Progress
Community Characteristics: Suburban, Medium/Low Parental Support, Low Socioeconomic Status
My classroom is made up of emergent readers, beginning readers, and transitional readers. In order to meet the needs of each student in my classroom, I must group them based on their strengths and weaknesses as readers. I have four different Guided Reading groups in my classroom. Each group consists of children who use similar reading strategies, children who are able to read similar levels of text with support, and students who are working on mastering similar concepts.
Group 1 Description of the Group and How I select the Individual Topic to Teach (Original report included a description of each group)
This group consists of 5 students. According to Pasco County's Running Records, these students are reading on a Level 5-6. They are reading texts with predictable patterns and two to three lines of print per page. These books focus on a single idea and have a simple story line. Print appears at the same place on every page. The print is easy to see and there is ample space between each word so that children can point and read. All five students have a small sight word vocabulary. They know all of the letters of the alphabet and their corresponding sounds. They are working on phonemic awareness and hearing sounds in words. They are also working on using word patterns to figure out unknown words. For example, if you change the c in cat to a m you can read the new word mat. I use my knowledge of this group to select the text that I will use as well as the objectives that I will focus on. I select the text We Make Music. It is a simple book with illustrations that correspond with the text. It is a predictable book with one to two lines on each page. It is a rhyming book with several word families. After the introduction, I select a making -words -with -tiles activity and a rhyming flip book to help the students master word families and rhyming.

Sample 4
Description of Students and the Learning Environment
Grade Levels - 9 through 12~ predominately 9
Subject Area - Keyboarding skills
Classroom is - Heterogeneous
Number of Students -twenty-one
Male 10 Female 11
Class Characteristics
Race/Ethnicity:
Caucasian: 16
African American: 2
Hispanic: 2
Number of Students on Free lunch: 2
Number of ESOL: 2
Number of EMH, EH, SED: 0
Number of LD: 3
Community Characteristics
Location of School - Suburban I
General level of Parental Support - Medium
SES of Majority of students - Middle to Low
Other factors influencing the teaching:

For these business courses we use a variety of technology. The primary piece of equipment they use is the computer. But we often use LCD projectors and Overheads to help facilitate the learning process. Another factor for us to consider at our school is the necessity of Learning Communities. At this school each student is group into a learning community that helps to guide them into a specific learning area. We must also consider the projects and Community theme when developing lessons for the students in our Business Community.