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.