Field Experience #7

Observations:

This week was my last week during field experience. During my last few days, I tried to spend as much of the time as I could soaking in the last few times I would be at this class. I observed just how much the students have grown from the time I first started their till the end. I also loved watching the students making pictures for me and other crafts to keep. Observing how much the students grew in their learning, and trust in me as well, showed me the importance of having teachers who care.

Learning Experiences:

This week the students were spending time learning about how they can use context clues and opinions they have from a story, and write them down into a well organized thought on paper. The students were also reading information from a text and being told to answer questions from the text. The skills are crucial for the students to start to understand because they will continue to use them further on in during their educational journey.

Reflections:

After reflecting back on this week, it thought about how much this experience has meant to me. I’ve had to opportunity to get to know each of these students and impacted me so much. On my last day I brought each of them cookies and juice boxes, and they were so excited to get this. But when they realized it was my last day they got sad and many of them drew me notes and made other crafts as gifts for me to remember them by. It made me realize how much the opportunity meant to me and Im glad I was able to see what it was like to be in an actual learning environment as I used the knowledge I had learned from the teacher cadet course prior.

Stories to Share:

On my last field experience day, I gave each of the students cookies and juice to eat and enjoy. After many of them gave me their gifts they made in class, and I was about to leave, many of the students ran up to me and gave me a hug goodbye. They were all so sad to see me leave. This made me sad, but also grateful that the small impact I had on the children was positive and I was someone they were going to miss. I really valued my time during this experience and it taught me more than I thought it would!

 

Field Experience #6

Observations:

This week I did my full day teaching as well as my final observation with Mrs. Jackson. During my full day teaching, I was able to see so much more of how the classroom operates throughout the day. I am only able to see the children learn their English lessons in the morning, so I enjoyed being able to watch the students learn math and be able to help them with this as well.

Learning Experiences:

This week one of the things I learned was how important it is to keep the students attention span all day, and too make sure they are still getting time for breaks. This is why times such as recess are so important. It allows the kids to get the breaks they need throughout a full school day and to be able to let their energy out at such a young age. I also learned how important it is to really get to know each of your students. This is something I noticed with my cadet teacher, because she formed many lessons and plans around each of the students and decided techniques based off of what was best for them.

Reflections:

After reflecting back on this week, one thing I felt very confident in was my final lesson. I was nervous at first, but I felt reassured by each of the students as I watched them get so excited to see me teach them and listen to my read aloud. It was so fun being able to have the opportunity one last time to be able to teach these students information and have them apply it to an activity and do so well. It helped me appreciate teaching even more and just how exciting and rewarding this profession could be if I decide to do it in my future.

Stories to Share:

One story I had from this week was during my final lesson. As I was reading my read aloud to all the students, they were sitting on the carpet. During this, one young girl was sitting in front of me and kept inching forward throughout the entire story, trying to get closer and closer to the book. It made me realize just how important it is to read a story with excitement to the class so you can gain their full attention. I loved being able to know that one girl was so eager to hear more about the story while I was reading.

 

Field Experience #5

Observations:

During this weeks field experience, one of the things I observed was all the students get so intrigued in each of the lessons that were taught. I found this interesting because as students get older, its harder to keep their focus. When kids are at a young age, teachers have many different techniques so that the children will be eager to learn. I found this very important because I think teachers should have this same mentality for students in older grades as well.

Learning Experiences:

This week I observed my class do a writing sample and then many of the students read independently to me. It was very interesting to see how different each students level of comprehension is right now. Some of the students have no problem getting their thoughts down on paper and being able to read words to me while others are still struggling. This helped me to see just how crucial this time of education is for children at this age. Its very important to not only work on their reading skills inside of school but also outside of school because this is when their brain is developing most.

Reflections:

After reflecting back on this week, I think I have grown a better understanding of just how important the early years of childhood education are. Although this age might seem to be fun, its also very crucial. The material the children learn at this point of time is crucial for development and preparing them for the future. I’ve enjoyed being able to have the opportunity to be apart of each of the students educational journeys and it has made me more confident in the idea of possibly pursuing education in my future.

Stories to Share:

This week what I remember most is listening to the kids share stories about themselves. Many times they will do this during a read aloud and I believe it is the best way to check to see if they are understanding the story. I love hearing each of the students making connections because it not only shows they are staying focused, but it shows they are capable of using context clue to come up with a connection.

 

Field Experience #4

Observations:

This week during observations I observed my class work on their handwriting and writing capital letters and lower case letters. While they were working, I noticed how many of them were struggling with this and I was confused because I didn’t remember this being that hard to learn when I was their age. While the students were working, my teacher came up to me and told me that they have noticed the children progressively struggle more and more each year with this. We were both discussing possible reasons why children are starting to have harder problems with writing than during years prior and the biggest reason we believed was the use of technology and phones that are distracting even the youngest kids. This is something I would strive to work on if I became a teacher.

Learning Experiences:

This week the students in my class were working on their writing and spelling skills. Along with this the students were also learning about other kids who have disability’s. It was interesting hearing them learn some of the same material we learned in teacher cadets and how certain children have a harder time learning than other children do. During this lesson, I learned the importance of teaching kids to understand this at a young age. Its important for kids to learn the differences they have to others at a young age because it will teach them early on to know that despite these differences, we are all still human beings and should be treated equally.

Reflections:

After reflecting back on this week, I have realized how comfortable I have gotten with my class and students and It makes me feel very confident. The students are coming to me to ask more questions then they first did, and the teacher and starting to let me help students with assessments while she helps others because I have started to understand her teaching techniques better and what is needed for each student to do good.

Stories to Share:

This week I went to tour Charleston during one of my class for field experience. I didn’t think my students would know that I had missed a day of class, but when I came back the next day, the students all got so excited to see me. Many of them asked me where I had been the class before. Seeing the students get so excited made my day and made me realize even more just how much I have loved field experience and being able to have the opportunity to work with young children.

 

Field Experience #3

Observations:

This week I did my first lesson. I felt very confident doing my lesson but one thing I observed was how the students acted toward me compared to my teacher when teaching. The students felt that they didn’t have to try as hard during the written assessment and I this is one thing I want to discuss with my teacher. I want to find ways to gain the same attention that she gets from her students as well.

Learning Experiences:

This week the students were learning how to analyze stories and answer questions with an explanation using context clues. While the students were learning this information, I was learning more about the students and how each of them learn at different paces. I have learned how important it is for the students to do brain activities such as dances to help their brains grow which helps them function more and learn more. I want to try and incorporate these into my lessons from now on because I feel that they are very crucial.

Reflections:

After reflecting back on this week, and doing my first lesson, I have really started to enjoy the idea of teaching and being able to do field experience. I felt very confident in my lesson and my students seemed really excited to have me teaching their class. I prepared my lesson with enough time in advance and had no problems completing the lesson. Im eager to begin doing more lessons and be able to have more experience teaching so I can decide if this is what I want to do when I get older.

Stories to Share:

This week I completed my first lesson and the students were so excited to hear I would be teaching them. It was so sweet watching all the kids jump up and down and hug me as soon as they saw me go up to the front of the classroom to begin the reading. It made me feel way more confident in teaching my lesson because it thought the students were not going to be that excited for me to teach. During the assessment, the students have to draw a pic of a duck or a rabbit and the students all wanted to show me their artwork and give it to me. It was such an amazing experience and I cant wait to teach my next lesson.

 

Field Experience #2

Observations:

One thing I observed this week during my field experience was that one of the little boys in my class is in a program called “reading recovery”. This is for students who are behind on their reading and have to be taken out of class to work with another teacher on their reading skills. When I was in first grade, I too was in reading recovery, and hated when the teacher would come grab me because she would say “Lyndsey it’s time for reading recovery” all the students knew why I had to leave, making me feel embarrassed. But now, whenever this little boy has to go to reading recovery, other students knock on the door and tell him its time to come “play” for a little bit, and he is never embarrassed. I realized through this that it is important to make kids feel special at this young of an age. When I was doing the program, I was so embarrassed, so I therefore did not want to put motivation into helping my reading improve, but sense this little boy thinks that what he is doing is “playing”, he is excited to leave and feels special, making him want to improve his reading more than I did.

Learning Experiences:

This week the students were learning about vowels and how to apply the problem solving skills to conflicts in stories. As they were learning this material, I also learned that its important to try and relate lessons as much as you can to the students. For example, while reading stories to the class, the teacher would stop reading and ask students if they had once experienced a problem like the one in the story and how they managed to fix their problem. When doing this, the students became much more engaged with what they were reading because they were excited to share their personal experiences with the class.

Reflections:

After reflecting back on this week, I have learned a better understanding of how kids with learning disabilities can have harder times learning in class. There is three students with autism that come into the class in the morning to socialize and watch the morning announcements with the rest of the class. These students have a hard time focusing but love being able to sit in normal classrooms with the other students. This is important because it helps them have the desire to not look at their learning disability a problem that is wrong with them, rather is helps them realize that they too can be just like the rest of the first graders who do not have learning disabilities.

Stories to Share:

This week, the class was celebrating St. Patrick’s day that weekend. It was fun being able to see each of the students come in wearing their green clothes and enjoy reading books about leprechauns. My class also had to complete MAP testing this week as well. I also found this interesting because I remember taking that when I was young and it was very scary at the time. Now when I look back, I can remember how I felt when I was their age and think of ways to help ease their stress and find ways to motivate them to not be so nervous.

 

Field Experience #1

Observations:

I am a student teacher at Ballentine Elementary. The teacher in my first grade class has been at this school for many years and is very good at her job. She is very welcoming and cares about each of her students so much. She asks how each of them are each day and makes sure they have a comfortable relationship with her. I enjoy her teaching techniques because she plans fun activities that keep the students engaged throughout the lesson. Many of her lessons are include videos the students can sing along to, lets the students use individual white boards to practice problems instead of a sheet of paper, and lets them move around the room. She also takes “brain breaks” during lessons and lets the kids dance around to songs they like so they don’t get to tired focusing so long on lessons.

Learning Experiences:

So far this week I have been to my classroom twice and have already learned so much. Getting to see how different teachers must plan their lessons based on the age of their students is so important. One thing I realized was so important was taking “brain breaks” for young students. Its very hard for them to focus for long terms without getting tired and loosing interest. Some of these brain breaks can include them dancing to songs they like which gives them a break from eh lesson and wakes them up if they are tired. Im excited to see what else I will learn and what I can help teach the students as well.

Reflections:

After reflecting back on this week, I have already began growing an interest for teaching that I wasn’t expecting. Although Im still not sure if this is a career I want to pursue when I get older, I have been considering it this year while taking this course and my interest is growing while Im going through field experience. I enjoy teaching younger children and be able to really get to experience teaching in action. Im excited to see how this experience goes and I hope to get to learn new things throughout the experience and be able to reflect back on it with a strong teacher heart.

Stories to Share:

This week, one story I found interesting during my field experience was when my class was doing their “stations”. This is when the class breaks into different parts of the room and completes different activities related to reading. Some of the stations include sitting down quietly and reading a book to yourself, playing reading games on a computer, and listening to stories on a video recorder. While the class was doing these stations, the teacher wanted me to walk around and listen to the kids read books out loud to me. I was so impressed at how advanced they were at reading at such an early age. One young girl was reading a book and as I was listening to her read I noticed how she would pause when a hard word came up and would sound it out until she got it right and get so happy as soon as I said it was correct. I loved how smart the kids were at reading at such a young age and the happiness they got from doing something so simple as reading a word right that was hard for them. This helped me understand that when I soon teach, I want to incorporate techniques that reward students when they do good because I know it makes them feel good about themselves and that’s important to me.

 

Blog #11

Read-Alouds:

We didn’t have any this week.

Learning Experiences:

During the past couple of weeks, our class was working on our model lessons. Me and my partner did a math lesson and it was challenging and fun getting to plan we would be doing during our lesson. After working on the lessons and listening to our classmates present theirs, I learned new techniques that would help me prepare for field experience. We also got the chance to watch a video of ourselves presenting our lesson. This was a great opportunity for me to be able to critic myself and see what I need to work on so I can be prepared for field experience in the near future.

Current Event:

There has been a recent proposal by Betsy DeVos that costing $5 billion about school choice. It allows parents to send their kids to private or public schools of their choice from k-12. Many democrats in congress are against it because of how big of a federal tax cut it will be. Many people in congress have said this would be a decisions states can make individually about what kids can go to certain schools.

Current Event Link

Quote of the Week:

What greater joy can a teacher feel than to witness a child’s success?

― Michelle L. Graham

I feel this quote is important because it describes the best goals one should have when teaching. Teachers have the ability to change students lives and inspire them to be the best they can. When teachers have enough patience and truly spend time working with their kids, they are able to see their goal of their success achieved. 

Observations:

During the past few weeks, I have observed how eager many of the senior students are to be graduating and are experiencing what is known as “senioritis”. I myself am experiencing this as well. When seeing how this is affecting many of the students, by causing them to procrastinate and not get all of their work done, it has showed me how important it is to stay on top of my work during the last few months of high school because grades are still very important. My goal is to try my hardest the next couple of months before graduation and enjoy my little amount of time left in high school.

Reflections:

After reflecting back on the past couple of weeks, I feel very prepared to enter field experience. Our model lessons were a great way for us to display and illustrate everything we have learned this year into one final project. We are starting field experience next week and I am nervous and excited to begin using all the information I’ve learned in this class in a real teaching environment!

 

Blog #10

Read-Alouds:

We didn’t have any read-alouds this time.

 

Learning Experiences:

Last week, we had a really fun day were we visited 6 different schools and got to go into different classrooms for different grade levels and observe how they function. I found this experience really important because each classroom we visited was very different. We visited one classroom at H.E. Corley and we were able to see children who had IEPs that were very young. We were also able to see students in higher grades as well, all the way up to 8th grade, at Dutch Fork Middle. Being able to observe such different classroom environments helped me better understand all the possible options one has to choose from when becoming a teacher, and how one must choose level that they feel best fit for them.

Current Event:

Sarah D. Sparks has recently done a study after observing a fourth grade class in Chicago. She brought her founding together and came up with the idea that most kids learn better when they use technology individually. She said that learning programs that help pitch technology, help to engage students better. There were also recent studies done that shows even with online rigorous programs, students were able to learn more than they could with face-to-face teachers. Online activities can help better track how much students are progressing through lessons and also have so many more benefits that helps students individually.

-Face-to-Face, Personal Connections Given Greater Attention in Classes(Sarah D. Sparks)

Quote of the Week:

“Our task, regarding creativity, is to help children climb their own mountains, as high as possible. No one can do more.” -Loris Malaguzzi

I think this quote is important because I feel that an important task teachers have is to inspire their students. Teachers are the ones who educate, and help people want to become doctors, lawyers, and so much more. If we don’t have teachers who inspire others, than no one will be able to reach their own mountains or grow as high as possible. 

Observations:

During observation day were we went to different schools and observed different classrooms, one thing I noticed was how different each school was. Some schools seemed so much nicer and way more funded than others. This really upset me because I wished every school was equally as nice and had the same type of learning environments so that the children had equal environments to learn in.

Reflections:

After completing observation day, I think I have created a better understanding of what grade level I want to teach in. I had so much fun observing the younger, elementary school grade levels and I think that after reflecting back on this trip, it would be more fun to teach 2nd or 3rd graders. I hope I can get these grades for field experience, and one day be able to teach these grades as a career if I choose to be a teacher!

 

Blog #9

Read-Alouds:

we didn’t have any read-alouds this week

Learning Experiences:

During the past two weeks our class has started to focus on the different assessments teachers might use to teach a lesson to their class. We discussed the difference between formative and summative assessments and when its best to use these in class. We also had Mrs. Aplin come into our class to show us different types of resources we could use to teach our class when we go into field experience. Mrs. Aplin showed us different games and websites that we the class got to experiment with. Along with Mrs. Aplin we also had another guest come into our class, Mr. Maxey. Mr. Maxey is the South Carolina State Teacher of the Year and we had the privileged to hear his story of how he first decided to become a teacher and his journey to where he is now. He shared of how he went to Africa for some time to teach the students there and he had to learn Arabic for 6 months to be able to communicate with them. While he was in Africa he helped to build new school restrooms for the different villages which helped more students attend school.

Current Event:

A rural community in Virginia is suing the state for allowing educators to carry guns with them in school for potential school shooters. The states former Republican attorney, Ken Cuccinelli, is supportive of the NRA and believes it is important for teachers to therefore have guns on them for protection. But, the Democrat attorney, Mark Herring, says that the state has no legal ground to put guns in schools. Certain people think this idea is dangerous while others believe if educators get the training they need, it would help decrease the amount of school shooting across the country.

Current Event Link

 

Quote of the Week:

“We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.” 
― Stephen King

This quote is important to me because it shows how important it is for a teacher to build relationships with their students and inspire them to do their best. Students might not always tell the teacher, but teachers can have very strong impacts on their students and change the way the student thinks or works. But the only way this can happen is for the teacher to not give up on their students and remind them of their potential if they work hard. 

Observations:

This week I had a hard test in anatomy that many students were saying was extremely difficult and there was no hope. One of my friends told me that she had studied for many hours and did well on the test so I decided I would take a couple hours each night and review. On the day of the test, I felt that I had studied all I could and I felt confident after taking it that I did good. If I were to become a teacher I would want to stress to the students the importance of studying and helping them find ways to study best and manage their time wisely because this can help them either do well in the class or not.

Reflection:

After reflecting back on the past couple of weeks, I feel that I have learned how important teaching really is. Mr. Maxey had us each choose one word that defined teaching to us, and many were words such as “inspire”, “influence”, etc. None of the words our class choose were simply “math” or “English” because our class has begun to understand how teachers have the ability to impact students much more than just teaching them the requirements needed to pass the class. I feel that this value in teaching can be something I take with me in my future if I decide to become a teacher, but it can also be applied to many other situations in life as well.