Throughout the semester I had the privilege to work one-on-one with Kristie Hochrein, a 3rd grade teacher at Rosenow School. This was my first field experience at Marian, and I am proud of accomplishing this small milestone and learning more about myself and the field of education. This involvement opened my eyes to a variant of culture, teaching styles, and personal and professional growth. Prior to jumping into my assigned field experience, I constructed two goals in relation to my experience.
In this paper I will focus on how I achieved these goals and I will reflect on my field experience as a whole. The first goal I will elaborate on is, “I will become aware of how teachers interact with students whom have cognitive/ development challenges. ” This goal was, and still remains, of high importance to me. Prior to this experience I only had one experience working with students with special needs. In order for me to see progress happen with this goal, I followed an action plan. This plan was created to help me gage and help better attain my goal.
In my class I had two children with developmental challenges. For one girl these cognitive trials made it hard for her to socialize with the class and to focus on choolwork. I tried communicating wither her often and I tried to help her one-on-one. When I was just observing the class I would take a small amount of time each week to see how she interacted with the teacher, other students, and as whole class. I would then compare my observations week by week. I feel I gained a lot of knowledge on how to cooperate and be aware of how to properly and effectively work with those type of students.
The second goal I created was, “I will attend to the three types of learning, when creating my lesson plan. ” This goal came into play almost instantly in my experience. One of the first assignments we were required to do was complete a part of a lesson plan. As we created lesson plan by lesson plan, I really focused on this goal. I wanted to incorporate visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning into each lesson plan. To do this I used ideas of Pinterest, got advice from my teacher and researched online.
I feel I did a great job achieving this, especially in my final lesson plan where I read a book, had students actively write on a white board, and I showed pictures. I accomplished my goal of incorporating all types of learning when I created my final lesson plan. Another important aspect to reflect on is my relationship and interactions with both my co-teacher, Mrs. Hochrien, and the children in the class. One of the first large papers we had assigned was the teaching context paper. This paper helped me personally dig deeper into what Rosenow School is, in a slim and extensive sense.
I researched first about the community, Fond du Lac, the district, all the public schools within the community, and the school itself. While researching and being actively involved in the classroom, I learned that many students at Rosenow belong to very low income families and are very ethnically diverse. After discussing this with Mrs. Hochrein, she added that almost 100% of the students in her class were a part of the free or reduced lunch programs. This knowledge that I accumulated of teaching and learning context helped me when I began my final lesson plan.
My teacher specifically wanted me to talk about character traits, not only to help students learn the parts of a story, but also because there has been a schoolwide issue on self-awareness and personality traits. I also kept in mind that many of the students come from challenging home lives, so I wanted to ensure I did not talk about any stressful situations in my lesson plan. Teaching and classroom management are an important aspect of education. In order for students to be able to fulling learn and retain, the classroom must be a place free of large distractions and chaos.
Before my lesson, the students were a little wild, due to them having a substitute teacher that day. I feel like I did a good job getting them focused by laying out the rules before I began the lesson. I told them the importance of respect, listening, and raising their hands. Some other examples of classroom management I used was the way I had the children sit. I had them sit around a circular table in front of me, to help romote class discussion. This also helped me keep an eye on everyone. Classroom management is a large key to successful teaching.
Academic language is the language is the instructional language that is needed to partake in learning and assessment. In my final lesson plan I used the word recall, describe, and listen. Within each classroom there are multiple variants of children. There are students that struggle with some subjects, that are gifted, different genders, and some with special learning needs. Each student learns differently and it important to recognize these variances. I saw a lot of differences in Mrs. Hochrein’s class. Over 60% of the class was girls, which made the boys a minority. I learned and observed how to interact with students who have IEP’s.
ADD MOREHERE Reflecting back on how I taught is an important practice to do. First of all, I recognize that I was definitely not perfect and I never will be. I also recognize both the good and bad of how I did. To improve on my professional development, I need to work on slowing down and finding a flow within my lesson. If I taught my lesson again I would utilize a large white board, create a better a-set, alter my worksheet, and have the students read along with me. As a teacher the way to gain professional development is through making changes in your teaching patterns and skills.
Before teaching my final lesson, a lot of time and commitment went into creating it. To begin, I worked with my professor on preparing for it. Sister Catherine gave us the tools to be fully equipped to produce the lesson. After knowing how to make the lesson plan, I worked with my cooperating teacher to find out what topic she wanted me to teach on and what book to use. My teacher was very lenient when it came to choosing the book and topic. This was encouraging to me because it shows the trust and relationship hat we created.
Without the help and guidance from both Sister Catherine and Mrs. Hochrein, my lesson would have been incomplete. I feel as if the ultimate goal this semester was to really learn about who I am as a teacher. I personally wanted to find out why I want to be a teacher. Everyone asks that question, and now I truly feel I have an honest question in regards to it. I learned that teaching is both a science and a passion, but overall passion drives me. While in the classroom I learned that I found the good in each student, no matter what situation they were a part of or came from.
I learned that being a teacher is time consuming and that differentiation is one of keys to success. Overall, I learned that I mean to be a teacher and I am excited to learn more about this field of study. In conclusion, I am glad I got the opportunity to work in a classroom setting early on in my education major. I made me think of new ideas to explore within the field, boosted my confidence, and overall gave me insight to the future. I really took away from the one-on-one talks with my cooperating teacher, working individually with the children, and seeing the students and myself learn and grow.