Field Experience Refletions
Weekly reflections of my work with my mentor teacher.
Despite the ups and downs with my mentor teacher's class, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with her and her classes. It has taught me a lot about how different students learn now, almost 10 years after I finished grade school.
Week one
and Two
For my first field experience, I am going to Fall Creek Valley Middle School at Lawrence
Township.
The teacher I was assigned to is Courtney Atak who currently teaches 8th-grade
I am anticipating participating in the class and helping the teacher with grades and passing out
work. I also hope to learn how to manage a class and how to utilize the newest classroom
manager applications.
I do have some concerns. Having been to a class, I am concerned what would happen if I said
the wrong thing or if an incident were to occur and I get caught up in it.
After my first and second days, I noticed how rowdy the students can be. They sometimes
interrupt class and drop slurs, refuse to do their work, and would rather be on their phones or
devices. I saw one student watch Cobra Kai rather than pay attention. One student even jumped
on another student. There are even moments when students who aren’t even in the class are
in the room during the passing period. There are some students who try to eat when the teacher
has a no-food policy. When I was grading tests on my second day a lot of the test scores were
on the low end.
The students are diverse, with some English language learners in a period. For the most part,
students get along, but there are some altercations with arguments and insults thrown. On my
second day, there were referrals written due to all the rowdiness.
The teacher is passive when it comes to the phone rule and is willing to give out warnings
before confiscating phones. But will be stricter in the following school year. She is assertive
when it comes to the student’s behavior and will warn people about writing them up and will tell
them to sit back down or to stop using vulgar language.
The classes are divided into green and red days with 90-minute periods per day.
The room has desks moved into groups. There are history and geography stuff on the walls.
The Desks can be used as dry-erase boards, but the class has not used such a feature yet.
I’ve heard that the school is shaped like a clover with classes spread out on one end and the
lunchroom and electives on the other end of the building.
Week Three
In my 3rd week of student teaching, I noticed more of the same from the students. They are still very rowdy and childish; they drop slurs and try to fight with each other. The students do minimal work and sometimes leave their work nameless at the end of the block/period. There are some moments when the students do participate in class. I had the opportunity to grade more tests from a different social studies class and one test writing response really impressed me. Besides grading, I have begun to take a more active role in class. I have been given internet access for my laptop to look at the lesson plans. As well as helping people with their work to some success and some students appear to understand what I tell them. Next week I will get the opportunity to follow the teacher’s lesson plan, and I am anticipating fully teaching a class for the first time.
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When we get further into the semester I hope to learn more about the school and figure out what activities I can participate in to fulfil the School Community Engagement.
Week Four
My 4th week of my field experience was the most exciting thus far. I have begun taking a much
more active role in the classroom by helping students with their work. We had an assignment
where students filled out a map of territories in the US in 1800 depending on whether they were
foreign, or US-controlled. Students who needed help asked me which territory to color in and
rather than giving the answers myself, I gave students the opportunity to find the answers
themselves. After the map assignment, there was a quiz. The scores from the tests I had
graded were exceptional with many more perfect scores than the first tests I had graded. During
the prep period, I sat in on my mentor teacher and another social studies teacher formulating a
lesson plan for westward expansion. I think I may have also given a suggestion by mentioning
that I had found a way to play the game Oregon Trail with my mentor teacher.
The highlight of the field experience last week was when I actually got to teach the class. I
followed my mentor teachers’ steps while also allowing the students to find the answers
themselves. I did have to sometimes point out where to find them, but the students managed to
find the answers.
The student’s behavior is still less to be desired. While some students are behaving, others are
still rowdy and drop slurs. Students will sometimes be distracted by their phones rather than doing
work. One student attempted to do his test 3 times after realizing he failed the first time, in the
process stealing an answer key I was using. There was also a fight of some sort, possibly play
fighting. Upon seeing this I said, “This is not Mortal Kombat please do not ‘finish him’”. I guess
that was too absurd for them that they stopped and laughed. The field experience is shaping up
to become my favorite part of this semester and I look forward to what will happen in the
following weeks.
Week Five
The fifth week of my field experience has probably been the best. Despite some delays due to
ILEARN testing, we got started with regular school around lunchtime. Ms. Atak taught the only
full-time class. The lesson was about the Lewis and Clark exhibition, with the student work
being about analyzing their journal notes and sketches, and playing a game about their exhibition.
However, during the lesson, some students did not pay attention, and one was playing a game
on his Chromebook. I tried to encourage him to stop playing, but he refused to listen. It wasn’t
until Ms. Atak made a general call during the class to put their devices away that he stopped.
However, once the assignments started, he started his game again. During the game, I helped
some students get through it. After lunch, Ms. Atak decided to go through it as a class, I helped
one group try to pick a decision they were stuck on, but having them flip a coin. They picked tails,
and the choice resulted in them not losing any supplies or morale.
After the lunch period, the last 2 class periods were shorter, so the game was cut out. I was also able
to teach these 2 periods with limited support from Ms. Atak. She asked both periods to treat
me with respect, as “we desperately need more teachers.” The period started as usual, we did
do this day in history, I did add some more information. Such as for the one of the
Czechoslovakian communist coup, I mentioned how my Czech friend has heard about the
Communist leader to show the significance of the event. After the warmup, where the students
chose the event they found interesting, the main lesson took place. I read through the
PowerPoint and provided some more information. Such as during the showing of the map of the
journey, and bringing up one of the reasons we know the path they took. I first asked the class if
they knew what mercury was; most of them guessed the planet, but a couple of them guessed
the metal. Metal is what I was looking for as the exhibition took medication that contained
mercury, and researchers later found the mercury and charted the approximate path. After the
lesson, we did the analysis assignment. There was a lot of student engagement, especially for
the last question. Some students threw out some wild answers, while they were all appropriate
to the question, only some were actually applicable.
The last period went the same. Although it was the last period, the students were tired and
eager to go home. When we were starting the class, I heard one student say, “Alfy’s teaching the
class? I love him!” or something of that sort. This pretty much removed any doubt of me wanting
to become a teacher. When going through the lesson, more students had guessed that mercury
was a metal. However, there was a lot less engagement during the analysis assignment.
Overall, this day was the best by far. Along with what was described, I have chosen a topic for
my UDL lesson plan and will work on it as we continue to talk about lesson plans on Thursdays.
During the analysis assignment, I continued to help Students by encouraging them to find the
answers themselves. I also tried a strategy for behavior by encouraging good behavior by
keeping a window open, although it didn’t stay open for the first class I taught.
Week Six
My 6th week was more of the same. Although with it being a different set of periods, the students
were different from the prior week. The day started out smooth enough with the first 2 periods
behaving and doing their assignments. I did help guide a group that was struggling in the right
direction. The last 2, specifically the second-to-last, had students who would rather play on their
Chromebooks or phones than do their work. It got to the point where Ms. Atak yelled at some
students and threatened to write them up if they did not get started. The last period did have
some hiccups, but I did guide them to where they needed to go. Two groups' Chromebooks
were dead, so I suggested they access Canvas using their devices. From what I saw, they seem
to have taken that advice. There was another group that was struggling. I suggested that to find
the right information, that they should read the questions first. While doing that, we discovered
they were looking at the wrong topic, but we fixed that.
On the subject of behavior, there was one instance where one student who took advantage of
Ms. Atak leaving the room to leave the room himself. I have had a day where some students
asked me to use the restroom, but I have answered that I have no authority over that, and to ask
Atak. This time a student asked me, but when I said I had no authority, he left the room anyway.
When Atak returned to the room, I informed her of the student. When the student returned, he
made an excuse saying he “misheard me”. Atak didn’t believe him and said that he should know
better. There was also a moment when I was in a hallway that I heard a staff member yell
towards another class to “put that desk down”.
Week Seven
Week 7 of my field experience has by far been the worst. In the first period after her
prep period, half of the students got written up due to some type of improper use of
technology. Especially during this class, Atak attempted to add some student
engagement activities. The students squandered these activities. There was an activity
where you would write your ideas on a marker board. Only a few students participated
in this. This is where the write-ups began, starting with a student who refused to get off
his Chromebook. The next activity was worse, as students only moved to different
corners of the classroom for reasons other than the ones asked. For example, some
moved because they could, one because he liked Tecumseh’s name and thought he
was cool, and others didn’t even know why they moved. We restarted this activity, and we
got better answers. However, due to all these negative behaviors, we did not get to the
3rd activity.
Due to this class, Atak enforced the no-cellphone policy for the rest of the day and the
school year. Everyone had to put their phone in a box, or they would be written up. For
the rest of the day, the students complied with the cellphone rule. Although in the last
period, one student opted to go to student services to turn in his phone rather than turn
it into the box. Also, during this period, a couple of students opted to watch the Amazing World of Gumball, Panda Express reviews, or something on Netflix rather than paying
attention in class. During the activity involving moving around, the student watching
Gumball moved with his Chromebook. Also, during this last period and the one before it,
there was little engagement during the marker activity. Some students either did not
attempt it or were writing vulgar things on their desks. One group of students had an
answer, but erased it before they could share it.
During the first period, which was Atak’s prep period, Atak informed me of her evaluation,
which was happening the next day, and that they chose the period containing her worst
class. She went on to say that she was bribing this period with Takis to have them
behave. All the misbehavior made Atak reverse her decision on student engagement
activities for her class. This also made me think that a UDL lesson plan, which is meant
to focus on student engagement, is not worth all the work if these students aren’t even
going to be engaged in the first place.
Week Eight
Week 8 of my field experience showed some improvement, although some things stayed
the same. When arriving at Atak’s class in the morning on the first day of week 8, I saw
a fellow classmate from block 2 who, due to some issues with his mentor teacher being sick, enter the
class. I had heard he may be placed with Atak, so it was nice to see another familiar
face. During Atak’s prep period on the first day, we discussed Josh’s experiences sitting
in with a sub as well as him choosing an I.D.O.E. for 8th grade. He said one day he was
forced to watch the first part of Despicable Me for every class. We also decided that we
will essentially share the I.D.O.E. I had chosen. For the rest of the day, we had graded
assignments. Atak had shown us that one period had barely done their work. We had
also noticed that some students had given ludicrous answers to some questions. During
the last period of this day, I had seen some students playing Super Mario 64 and Sonic
the Hedgehog 2 on their Chromebooks rather than doing their warmup. I did try to spark
up a conversation with them by saying that those are the games I used to play as a kid
or when I first played them, to no avail. Throughout the class, when I wasn’t grading, I
was walking the class looking to see if student were doing their work and encouraging
them to do it. I also participated in the discussion during a period, bringing up a factoid
about Andrew Jackson.
For Thursday, since it was the last day before spring break, we watched a history-related
movie. The students either paid attention or kept to themselves. However, during the
last period, everyone was eager to leave, and everyone was leaving the class a couple
of minutes before the bell would ring. Other than that, my classmate and I participated in the
school’s spirit week, while at first, I didn’t pay attention. My classmate dressed as Harry Potter on
Tuesday, which was humorous, and the classes liked it. For Thursday, I brought a hat that
my parents got me from Miami. Although not many people in the school partook in the
spirit week. I was also able to further work on my UDL lesson plan and figure out a club
to participate in. After spring break, I hope to participate in this club, but if it doesn’t work
out I do have a backup.
Weeks Ten and Eleven
The past 2 weeks have been a bit of the same, but my classmate and I did present our lessons for the week of the
14th. For the first week, I worked on my presentation and assessment for my lesson as well as do the
usual warm-ups for the class. I did offer the opportunity for my classmate to go through the warm-ups, but he
declined. The topics for that week were manifest destiny and the Mexican-American War. I don’t
remember that much about that week, but I do remember helping people with a bumper sticker activity,
giving them ideas on how to be more artistic and showing symbolism, and having conversations with
them over random bits of trivia and factoids.
During the 2nd week, my classmate and I presented our lessons. I think we both did good, but for me, mine started out smoothly with some students engaged with the lesson. I was really impressed with one student’s responses. The students found the video summary I used at the end humorous as well. During the Independent work/assessment, things didn’t go so well as I felt some
students opted not to read the articles I gave them, despite me giving them the passages that would
have essentially given them the answers. I noticed they did enjoy the timer I created with Civil War
music. Despite this, there were still some interesting answers to the open question I gave, but I’m not
certain whether to give them the option to write on the tables with markers, helped or not. The final
assessment was a little rocky as I miscounted the number of students and didn’t print the right number
of materials, so only 2 groups were really able to start. Ultimately, we ran out of time before we could
finish anyway. However, Atak was impressed by my creativity with this assessment and suggested I put
it on Teachers by Teachers, which I am seriously considering. She will also be using my lecture for future
periods, which I feel accomplished about.
Other than that, for the other lectures we focused on Industrialization and urbanization, so I helped with
an urbanization game by drawing an example on the board. It was funny hearing the students complain
about the lack of space in their papers. I also got some “oooo’s” when I told some students they
shouldn’t be complaining if they had a lot of hours on city-building games like “Sim City” and “Cities Skylines”. During this activity, I tried to do some conflict resolution by placing students who were working
away from students who were bothering them. On Thursday, after my classmate's lecture, we talked about social
movements, along with Atak preparing my lecture for her other periods and suggesting I put the
assessment on Teachers by Teachers. I notice that for their warmup, a student used my suggestion for
one of the this day and history questions. I also tried to help Atak put a problem student in his place because
he was acting up. I was also able to finally figure out my community engagement, which will be on the
29th during ILEARN testing, I will be a helper in the life skills room.