Most Important Thing You Learned In Fieldwork

I think that one of the most important things that I learned in field work is to love all of your students and be their friend as well as their teacher. You need to be a teacher that your students can trust and can enjoy being around you every day. If the students dont like you and respect you, then they wont be as willing to listen and learn from you. While it is important to be your students' friends, it is also important for them to understand that you are the teacher and you are in charge. I think it is most important that a teacher learns to find a good balance between being in charge and respected and being friends with the students so they can have the best learning experience possible.

Rules and Organization

In the classroom that I was in there were very basic rules. She expected the students to already know how to behave at school. But she had a few rules like, raise hand to talk, be respectful, Keep your hands to yourself, etc... One way she enforced theses rules and other behaviors that might arise was with a clothes pin chart. The chart had about 6 areas labeled from excellent behavior to not having a great day at all. When the students would have behaviors that the teacher noticed, good or bad, she would tell them to more their clothes pin accordingly. The students earned a certain amount of points towards an auction depending on which area of the chart their pin ended up on. 

The teacher had a schedule posted on the board so that her students always knew what to expect next up in class. If there was going to be something different happening that day, she would let her students know in the morning as they were starting out their day so that they would be prepared. 

The materials in the classroom were very organized. Everything had a place in her classroom, and everything was labeled very clearly as to exactly what went where. I noticed that the students were really good with putting things back where they were supposed to go, and never had a problem finding things in the classroom, so they did not have to interrupt the teacher every time they needs a new pencil or a band-aide or something like that. 

Engaging all Students in Learning

In my field work, I saw a lot of things that my teacher did to engage all of the students. One of the main things we did that was engaging for everyone was our plays. All of the students had lines and parts that they had to learn and memorize, and they worked together to act out the plays. They all had to be engaged and paying attention in order to read their parts on time.
She also let the students do a lot of group work, which I feel like made the kids all talk together and figure out answers as a team rather than struggling with the answers themselves.
She also did a lot of songs to teach the kids different information. She had made songs to the tunes of popular songs that the kids would know so that they would be more likely to want to sing a long with them (ie: for math facts to the tune of happy).
I thought it was great to see how all of the students worked together and were being actively engaged in their activities without too much prompt from the teacher because of the way she had prepared the activities before hand.

What is the most important and most challenging role a teacher plays?

I think that all at the same time the most important and most challenging role a teacher plays is being a friend to their students.
I think it is important to be a friend to your students, and I saw the teacher I did field work with do this. The students are comfortable with the teacher and they can play and make jokes together. But at the same time that can be hard because there does have to be a line between the teacher being in charge of the students and how friendly they are. I think the most important thing a teacher can do is find that line as quickly as possible with each of their classes so they can have a successful and also a fun year together.

How does this teacher manage assessment? What types of clerical and preparation responsibilities have you participated in?

In my field work I was unable to see how the teacher manage assessments. I did assist her in preparing for the class each morning, by making sure things were ready for the students in the classroom. We made sure that the floors ere cleaned, pencils sharpened, all of the charts were emptied off for the students to fill back out each day. She would tell me what worksheets needed to be pulled out of the drawer for the students to work on that morning. While the students were working on a worksheet, I would also do the same worksheet so that if any of the students needed help I would be able to help them more quickly and easily. It also helped when grading some of their short answer problems, because those tended to vary a lot so I had to know what they were talking about and if they were correct or not.

What modifications for learners who are exceptional do you see?

While I was doing my field work there was one student in the classroom that I noticed was always doing something different than the rest of the class. I inquired the teacher about this and found out that she was a little below grade level in the subject that was being worked on during the time I was there. So, for that amount of time, while the other kids did vocabulary sheets for english time, she would write stories and bring them to the teacher and would go through them to make sure all of the words were spelled correctly. This helped her to be working on the same subject as the rest of the class, but also in a way that was more on her level and enjoyable for the student too. I think that is something that could be a good idea that if one student specifically is struggling, then if there is a way to adapt the way she learns, like just working on writing and spelling rather than doing the reading and vocabulary sheets all of the time, then that is something that would be good for any teacher to try out.

Work with Small Groups and One-on-One

In my field work I have had many opportunities to work with the children in small groups. Right now during the time I am there the kids are working on memorizing and performing plays. I am able to get with each group individually and talk to them about things that they could do to improve their play. We talk about how to stand on the stage so the audience can always see them and not have to look at their backs. We also talk about saying their lines slowly and clearly. A lot of the kids tend to say their lines super fast and end up mumbling all the words together and then it is hard to understand them. It has been fun to work with the students and see what kinds of critiques they are able to come up with for their groups before I have to give them the ones i came up with. 

I have also had the opportunity to work with a few students one on one. After we finish working on the student's plays, they pull out a vocabulary assignment. In this assignment they are to read the story and then answer questions about the story and also look up some of the harder words so they can learn what they mean. A lot of the kids end up working together on this assignment. I have found it interesting though that as each student brings their papers up to me only some of them will have the correct answers and spelling for their questions and words. One student came up to me like 3 times before he finally said "I really dont get this" instead of just walking back off to have his friends help him more. We sat down and went through the questions and I asked him about them and had him answer the questions orally. He was able to answer most all of the questions independently when he was given the chance to do it this way. Once he answered the questions correctly then I would help him to figure out how the best way to word the answer on his paper would be. I think it is very important to remember that not all kids learn in the same ways and we need to be understanding and accommodating to that with all of our students. The end goal is that the students succeed, not that the teachers have an easy life.