What is the most important thing you have learned during fieldwork observation? Why?

What is the most important thing you have learned during fieldwork observation? Why?

The most important thing I learned is how much a teacher really does. This is not going to be an easy job, there are papers to grade, a class agenda to keep up with, and 30 different children with different personalities. It is an all the time job. At first it was hard to see where I stood with these kids but by the time my hours were up I had found a place in the classroom, I had the respect of the kids and I knew that I could do this. I understand that each class is different and each new year will bring new challenges and new kids; it’s not always going to be easy. In fact I think it will rarely be easy but just with my short experience in the classroom I know it will be worth it.

What are the school rules/classroom rules and how are they enforced?

I think a lot of the rules are one that are mostly expected of kids in the 6^th grade but one behavior issue that has been happening lately is, coming to and from recess they get really loud. Today the teacher gave them a chance to rectify that but they failed quite badly, so tomorrow for recess they will be practicing coming up and down the stairs quietly. I feel like this is a fitting consequence.

There is a reward system that works fairly well, I think it would work better if she, the teacher, used it more frequently. They have what are called Class Bucks, they can earn these through good behavior, staying on task, helping the teacher and other students, for exceptional work… etc. After a while they have and auction in which the teacher brings things and the students can bring stuff to sell as well for other students to buy. One problem is that there isn’t a set time period for the auction, I think the kids would be more proactive in earning bucks if they had a deadline to earn as much as they could

What strategies does the teacher use to actively engage the students? How effective are these?

The teacher I am working with has some very engaging activities. For example, they are studying World War 2 right now, to go along with that they are doing book groups using historical fiction based on that time period. They also have to create a two scene movie trailer which they will do together in class. Another engaging activity they had was during their science lesson today they went around the room looking through microscopes at microorganisms.

I love these ideas. The first because they get to use their creativity and talk about the experience with the students around them. The con is sometimes they can get off task or there is always that one kid who just won’t do the reading and tries to drag their group down with them. For the most part I think it is a positive experience, it’s effective in making the students real look at the material. The second one because it is very hands on, they even prep the dishes of organisms and have to find and identify them. It get them out their seats and it kept their attention well enough once they got going and could see them moving.