Blog 4.3: Field Experience Reflection Days 5-6

Day 5 was a very busy day for the students they had a lot of work to do in their class, but the students all stayed on task and completed all of their work. I however didn´t get to finish this week out because I got sick, so my day 6 was on April 25th; they were pretty busy this day as well. My favorite thing that the students had to do today was watching them take their quizzes and see all of them trying their hardest to ensure that they would get a good grade. After all the students were all done taking their quiz, they were all asking what they made on it, and they were having their own little compition to see who got the highest grade. My favorite thing that the class had to do today was watch the video over the nervous system. This video was very educating for the students, and was a good visual of how all of a human´s senses works. The students were all very intreged and all wanting to know more about their bodies. Today, Ms.Taylor saw that her students were not all understanding what was going on in the daily work that they were assigned. Ms.Taylor looked p a video about the topic and let the video go in to greater detail. After watching the video, the student gained the knowlegde that was needed on the subject, and all were ready for their short quiz. Today, the students were being extremly loud, and Ms.Taylor had enough so she told them that she was going to take away their points if they were talking. This was a good way to get the students to quiet down. Their points are very important to them, and they are afraid to lose them. It is good to have a point system for the kids if you need something to make them act right. There will be a couple of studnets that do not care, but for the most part, they all care.

Blog: Junior High Field Experience Mrs.Shetron

This class was a really fun class to be around and was different from other junior high classes that I have experienced. In this class, all the kids would make jokes and mess around, but they would also all get their work done. These students are in honors literacy, and that just might be the difference in the junior high. The students were a joy to be around, and all did their work on time. They all seemed to be having fun in this class and felt very comfortable in this classroom setting. This class has a lunch break in the middle of class and this is another thing to consider when teaching because, after lunch, the students come back sleepy and wanting to take a nap. Mrs.Shetron has made a good relationship with these students, all of them feel like they can tell her just about anything that is on their mind, and this is a really good way to be as a teacher. She also had an activity for the students to do after lunch that involved them moving around so they would not be as sleepy. If I were to be a junior high teacher, I would defintally teach an honors class. These students are more behaved then the rest of the junior high, and are fun to be around. Even if they do not want to be seen as a ¨nerd¨ at this age, they all are worried about their grades, and make sure that all of their work is done.

Blog: Junior High Field Experience Coach Harville

The students are very wild at this age but they were pretty good for this class. First they watched a news video, and had to do a current event. There was a set rutien fo this class, and I thing that is very nessicarry at this age. The more of a rutine you have, the better the students will act. For the first part of the class, the students all had to listen to a slideshow, and had to answer questions as they went through it. Coach Harville help them know when a question was coming up and talked over each question with them. Coach Harville did a good job at explaining this history lesson to the students. He did it in a way that I wouldn´t think about doing it, and I would strongle suggest doing any lesson this way. It was very helpful to the kids, and would be great for any subject.

Blog: High School Field Experience Dr. Bulter

Teaching science in the high school would be a lot of fun. In thi case, it was chemistry, and they were doing a lab today sampling different types of elements. It is really fun to do labs with this age group, because the majority of them know how to act and know not to mess with the safty rules. The students all had a lab sheet, and there were six different sations to attend with two different elements at each sation. The students were take a sample of each element and put it over the flame to see what color the flame would turn. They would write down what the color was in great detail then later they got to figure out the reasoning for the different colors. Dr.Butler is very good at this type of stuff and she knew exactly were she needed to be and when to be there. She knew all of her students very well at this point, and warned the ones that needed to be warned about certain things that would go on during the lab. This made me realize that I would not be cut out for teaching high school chemistry. It was a very fun experience; however,there is just too much going on, and I know that it would be way too much for me to handle.

Blog: High School Field Experience Math

Most of the high school studnets are very calm, and you don´t have to worry about them being an issue especailly if you ae testing a higher level class such as honors. Today, Novmember 7, I observed Ms. Davis´s math class. It was overall a very good experience. The students all knew what to do when walking into the class. They all started by sitting their bags down the they turned their homework in, grabbed a notes page, and a calculator.This class has a routine that they stick to everyday and it was a very calm experience being in this classroom. Ms.Davis made jokes throughout the class making the students laugh. This is always a good thing to remember when teaching, and especailly when teaching high school students because you never know how hard their life may be and it is a lot easier for them to put on a face as if everything is okay. This class taught me a lot about teaching in the high school, and althogh it is a very calming place compared to the middle school or elemanary, I do not think that I could do it.

Blog 4.2: Field Experience Reflection Days 3-4

This week started off slow for the students in the middle school because they had a substitute, but ended pretty fun. The students all seemed to really enjoy the activities that they did in class this week. On Tueday, April 2, there was a substitute teacher for Ms. Taylor. Being late in the year, the stdents all knew what was expected of them, and all were on their best behavior. My favorite thing that I saw today was that when going over the daily work, the students all knew what to do and help each other out, so no student was left behind. This also put less stress on the substitute. Thursday´s class was a lot of fun. The students got to learn about dominate and recessive traits. My favorite thing was watching the students take a colorblind test as a class. This was a fun way to allow the students to understand traits that are passed down. (One student was partially color-blind). On Tuesday, Ms.Taylor left the substitute with a well-written lesson plan, and left names of students that were trustworthy if the substitute needed anything to be done otside of the classroom. This is a great idea and is for sure something that I would want to leave my futer substitute with. On Thursday, Ms.Taylor maintained to turn a one-person eye test into an activity for the whole class. Even with this being a class activity, she was able to find out that one of the students was actually partially color-blind. Ms.Taylor made sure that all of the students felt included. This week I have learned that it is great to always leave a well thoughtout lesson plan for your substitute, and even add some extra information to help them out even more. I also learned how you can focus on an indiviual while having a class acivity. The students love doing group activities, and they all love helping each other at this age even though they can be sassy at times. These students are all also very determined, and very hard workers, and will make sure that they are doing their work to the best of their ability by always asking questions, and helping/reciaving help from others around them.

Blog 4.1: Field Experience/Reflection- Days 1-2

I have been observing in Mr.Taylor's classroom in the Middle School this week. This experience has been very eyeopening in many different ways. Overall, it has been very fun, and I have leared a lot of new things just in the two days that I have been down there. On my first day down at the Middle School, one of the students threw up in front of the whole class. The kid was very embarrest and, his classmates all thought that it was very gross; being this age, they let him know that they found it to be gross. This was a lesson to learn from when looking into being a teacher of this age group. Everyone at this age is pulling further away from being themselves, and they arejust trying to fit in with the crowd. Ms.Taylor first had to help the kis who was sick, then once he left the classroom, she gave the students a little talk about being respectful, and told them that they wouldn't like that either if they had been in the little boy's shoes. On the second day, every group had to present their science projects that they had been working on for the past couple of weeks about either a plants cell, or animal cell. This was a really fun way to learn about the cell for the students. They all seemed to have put forth a lot of effort and, they really enjoyed this project as a whole. If I ever need to teach a study over this in the future, or anything similar to it, I will definetilly be using this project for an example of what to do. One thing that the teacher did on the first day that I learned from was how she handled the situation with the sick boy.You could tell that the boy was very nervous, and didn't want to be there in front of all of his classmates, and she made him feel safe, and got him to the nerse quickly.After getting him to the nerse's office, she came back to the classroom and told the student how disrespectful it was of them to say things like "eww gross" because, he couldn't help it. On the second day, I really liked how Ms.Taylor let the student basically do a show-and-tale for their presentations. The students had to build a cell with one or two partners, after they were all done, they all walked around the classroom, showing all of their classmates. This just helps the kids feel safe, because I remember 6th grade me would have loved to do that much more than actually going up in front of the class and telling my classmates about my project. Over these two days, I have learned that the lower you go in age, the crazier the students get. This age espeically are out of the norm because, they are just starting to figure out who they want to be as a person. Although, being in a classroom with these students is very fun for a short amount of time, I don't think that I could fully handle them for a full school year. This experience has been a lot of fun over these last couple of day; it has actually been the highlight of my days. This age group is very joyful, and entergetic. I have come to the thought that I don't think I could quite handle these kids full time, but they are very fun to see every now and then.