Mr. Watterson at that time introduced me to the class and told the students what my purpose was. He then told the students that I would be walking around asking questions about the subject matter and I would be there to help them out. This was a treat for me. During the book project, I was able to go around the class and see some of the ideas the students had about creating their books. Through student interaction, I found that they really liked the different modalities of learning and preferred the group projects more than direct teaching or textbook problems. At the end of class, the students were given five minutes to ask me questions about my schooling. They wanted to know about what kind of math I had taken in high school and what area I wanted to eventually teach.
Interview
I got to interview Mr. Watterson during the class's project session and was able to ask the necessary questions about his lesson plan. Mr. Watterson did indicate that he had unit lesson plans that he refers to on occasion. Since he has been teaching World History for some time, it is most likely that his long term plans, his unit plans, and his lesson plans have been formulated for some time during his earlier teaching career. I gathered that from his behavior and his comfort of teaching that he did not refer to the lesson plans like a new teacher would. In fact, he did not have a lesson plan written out other than what was in his head. I asked him what compelled him to teach certain subject matters and he indicated that he had to meet certain "benchmarks" that the school determined necessary for the students to graduate and succeed with the CAHSEE exit exam.