A glimpse into a few field lesson reflections.

Oct. 13/21 PD Goal – Direction Giving

• Getting better at bringing attention back when needed.
• Continue to break directions into small chunks for students.
• It is okay to re-explain things when multiple students in the class are struggling/have questions rather than going around to help each student individually.
• Students can lose interest fast, therefore it is important to be engaging and clear.

Oct. 20/21 PD Goal – Direction Giving (Build upon areas which needed improvement from last week)

• Showed improvement in the area of going over directions again when needed.
• Showed improvement in breaking tasks into smaller chunks for the students.
• I was better at anticipating potential ‘problems’. For example, I proactively used body breaks before it was extremely clear that students needed them.
• I also anticipated some students would finish early and gave them steps of what they could do if they finished early before so that students did not come and ask what they could do when they were done as happened the previous week.
• Felt more confident this week and cooperating teacher already saw positive growth in lesson implementation.

Oct. 27/21 PD Goal – Set & Closure

• Last week my cooperating teacher suggested an area to work on would be creating a more engaging set and closure for the lesson. I was able to accomplish this through the use of a video/song and story book.
• The set was engaging and invited students to actively participate in a discussion. Students knew right away what we would be focusing on for the lesson.
• The closure successfully brought the lesson to a logical conclusion by reinforcing what we had been talking about. In the closure I was also able to connect to another topic students had been working on with my cooperating teacher.
• This lesson allowed me to experiment with a variety of teaching methods such as a video, song, drawing, discussion, and story.
• Areas for improvement during today’s lesson: speak more positive reinforcements with students (“Thank you ____ for being all ready to go!”), and have a clearer example of the activity (family portrait).

Nov. 17/21 PD Goal – Questioning: Wait time, Prompts, and Probes

• I used an exciting, funny, captivating video as a set. Students connected with it well and it showed a diversity of celebrations which got students excited for our topic. However, upon reflection and discussion with my co-op teacher I should have built upon this video more in follow-up discussions.
• An area I need further work on is rephrasing questions when students do not understand or know the answer. For example, in this lesson I asked students “What is a special event?” to which they did not know the answer. I could have rephrased this by simply going to “What is an event?”, and building from there.
• My co-op teacher thought was wait time was appropriate and I automatically responded to blurt-outs by reminding students to raise their hand. A suggestion my co-op gave me was to not be afraid of being a bit more stern – in good ways – with students to help with classroom management.

Overall Reflection

• I had a great experience with the grade ones! I learned a lot about classroom management and have added resources and activities to my growing collection.
• Throughout the experience my cooperating teacher talked about how she saw my confidence grow and we are both excited to see it grow as I become more and more comfortable in the classroom.
• In the future I look forward to trying out more instructional strategies and working more on my classroom management abilities (ability to deal with problems that arise, etc.).