Field Experience-Week 2

What? This week was the second week of field experience. We had the opportunity to teach and help out more and also to teach 2 social studies lessons.

So What? For the first social studies lesson we taught we created a power point but we weren't able to hook up the computer at the school so were weren't able to use it. Erica and I have learned a lot about accommodating when things don't work out exactly the way we planned. The second time we taught created the power point in Google Presentations so we were able to use the teachers computer to do the power point. Google Presentations is very helpful because so long as you have the internet you have access to your presentation.

I have actually enjoyed working with and teaching the 6th graders more than I thought I would. I was so scared to teach them because I want to teach 2nd or 3rd grade. I never thought I would do well working with the older kids but I have actually enjoyed it. This field experience has helped me to realize that I can do things that I originally thought I could not do. It is good to be able to try new things and gain different experiences and a new perspective on my abilities.

Now What? I learned a lot from having to adjust the lessons unexpectedly. For the first lesson we couldn't use our power point and during the second lesson the direct instruction part went way more quickly then we had thought it would. The kids already knew everything that we were teaching them. We knew they had some background in it, but we didn't think they would know it all, so it went really quickly. We had to learn how to adjust and extend our lesson to take up the entire time. Learning how to adjust and adapt will be really helpful when I am a teacher. Things don't always go as planned and this field experience is helping me to realize that you actually can adapt and still have things go well.

I have learned a lot from watching my cooperating teacher teach the students. There are a lot of things that I would do similar to what she does and other things that I would do completely different. It is fun to get ideas from her and see different approaches to teaching so I can find out better what way I would like to teach and to see first hand how these things apply in the real classroom and how students respond to these teaching methods. I know that in my future classroom I will teach math different than she does. The kids do not seem to understand the math very well at all. There are a lot of things I would try differently.

Video: I thought it was really interesting that they are using the Wii in classrooms to do physical training and to help the brain. I know that exercise has been shown to help kids think better and do better in school and I think using the Wii is a really good idea because it's fun for the kids and it's something they would want to do and it would be beneficial to them at the same time. I like that the kids are able to check out a laptop from their school if they don't have a computer to use at home. That is really beneficial because not all kids have access to a decent computer at home. This way they can still do assignments and homework at home that requires access to the computer.