An Overview of My Fieldwork Experience

It would seem that 20 hours is quite a large amount of time, however, it hasn't been nearly long enough for me to fully understand what it is like to be a teacher.  One thing that I have come to realize through my field experience is that school is a very different experience when standing at the front of the classroom.

The most important thing I learned from my field experience is certainly up for debate.  One of the more important things I learned was that teaching is not nearly as simple as I thought it was when I was a child.  Because I wasn't generally the child that was causing trouble, I took the teacher's ability to control the class completely for granted.  I couldn't see the stress that seemed to pull at the teacher's brow.  It never seemed to cross my mind that the behavior of the class reflected on the teacher.  The quality of the teacher is determined by more than just her ability to "teach".  

Another very valuable thing I learned from my field experience was that if you want to be a truly fabulous teacher you've got to contribute beyond what is expected of you.  The truly fabulous teacher commits every fiber of his/her being to teaching his/her students.  This means spending countless hours outside of the classroom preparing lessons and researching information.  However, if a teacher does their job right then they can make a huge impact on a child's life.  Ultimately, if they are able to improve the life of one person that makes all of the work worth it. 

Running a Classroom.. Smoothly

If it hasn't been mentioned in one of the previous posts, let it be known that I believe classroom manager is one of the most difficult roles a teacher has to play.  The teachers ability to manage the behavior of the students could very well determine how much a student will learn over the course of the year.  If a teacher spends all their time chasing students around the classroom, this cuts into the precious instruction time.
Classroom management and motivation seem to work hand in hand.  A teacher must first define the expectations he/she has for class behavior or academic achievement.  Then the teacher must motivate the students to follow these expectations.
Mrs. Heaps has clearly stated that she expects her students to quickly and quietly find their desks right after lunch. She clearly states this everyday as the students come in from lunch.  This way there is absolutely no question as to what Mrs. Heaps expects.  She also motivates her students with table points.  Whichever of the three tables is able to get their assignments and pencils out first with their voices off earns a table point.  You would be amazed how quickly some of those kids are able to get everything out when given the proper motivation.
Mrs. Brown, on the other hand uses a "quiet" song everyday right before she leads her class out to the school bus.  Using a lyrical language reinforces the behaviors they already know are expected and it allows the students to interact in the instruction.  Also using music caters to the students who learn best through music (according to Gardener's theory). Direct instruction is also a very important tool in managing behavior.
Following through on discipline is also very important.  This is one area that I personally struggle with,however, it is important that teachers do because otherwise students may think that they can get away with many things that are not acceptable.

Active Engagement

The ability to engage students in the learning process is what separates the truly fabulous teachers from the teachers who really struggle to control their class.  This is not quite as simple as it sounds. The teacher has to take into account the dynamics and interests of the class, while covering a tremendous load of information.

I absolutely loved the techniques Mrs. Heaps' used to keep the class engaged. On one particular day, the class was studying addition and subtraction. Mrs. Heaps' called up 10 students to create a human number line.  Those darling little students were bouncing up and down in their seats with eagerness to be called up as part of the number line.  This encouraged the students to behave themselves, for Mrs. Heaps would only call on the students who sat quietly with their arms folded, and it personally engaged roughly 3/4th of the class.  To make the number line even more fun, Mrs. Heaps used her friend Mr. Frog to bounce from the heads of each number on the number line.  Even I ate up this delicious lesson. The children were absolutely thrilled! 

In Mrs. Brown's class, the children were always working in groups when I came into the class.  The activities they did were engaging, however, I noticed that without an adult figure constantly hovering over the activity a couple of the students were not engaged enough with the material to work on it on their own.  This happened when I was in elementary school as well.  Despite the fact that the worksheets were generally pretty fun (color this leaf, cut and paste the letters under the right umbrella, write your name on the whiteboard with different color markers, ect..), it is difficult to ensure that all of the students are working.  With a group this young, this group activity may be more about teaching the students how to work in groups and focus on their assignment.  Although many of the students did work rather well on their own. 

If there is one thing that is certain, engaging all of the students in a classroom, with different interests and abilities, is a very difficult task that every teacher must master. 

The Most Important Role of a Teacher

Teachers play numerous roles in their everyday life.  These roles include lecturer, caregiver, grader, entertainer, classroom manager, lesson planner, collaborator, housekeeper, cheerleader, protector, assessor, and researcher among many others.

Stepping into Mrs. Heaps' classroom, I have seen her perform a handful of these roles. The time when I move to Mrs. Heaps' class from Mrs. Brown's class, is the time when Mrs. Heaps shepherds her class into the room.  Next, she delivers a fantastically fun math lesson or helps personally coach a student through their writing exercise.  Meanwhile, she has to maintain control of the classroom environment.
I have also seen Mrs. Brown complete the majority of these tasks.  Generally, when I arrive at Mrs. Brown's class, the students are working in groups.  Mrs. Brown demonstrates her ability to assess the reading skills of the students and manage the class. After they finish their group work, Mrs. Brown assists the students in cleaning the room while providing words of praise to her students. However, these are only a list of the roles that I saw.  Many more of these roles go unseen.
The question remains, what is the most important role a teacher plays? This is a question that is certainly a matter of opinion. I personally believe that it is a combination of all the roles that make a teacher's job so important. The role of teaching/lecturing is certainly one of the more important roles, however, I feel the most important role a teacher plays is the role of caregiver. I feel it is important that students are given the confidence and love needed to see that they can succeed in life. With that said, it is vital that a teacher performs of all of the above mentioned roles.

On Handling Assessment

When I was in elementary school I didn't give a whole lot of thought to how we were being tested,but from the front of the classroom I have realized that there is a lot of thought that goes into each test.
  I helped give a my first test in Mrs. Brown's kindergarten classroom just this week.  I called over each student one at a time and tested them on their ability to recognize the alphabet letters.  One on one testing was certainly the most effective method for testing kindergartners. A full class test would have been difficult for kindergartners due to their inability to read.  It might be interesting to try a group test to teach the appropriate behavior for test taking.
In Mrs. Heaps class I have helped give a math test.  My responsibility was to walk around the classroom to ensure that the children weren't peaking at their neighbor's paper and to ensure that they answered each question.  It was apparent that the students were still learning the test taking procedure, but it was interesting to see the tremendous amount of progress they made in a year.

English in the Classroom

In the two classroom I visit, only a hand-full of the students (about 3 or 4 to be more exact) are learning English as a second language. Mrs. Brown (the kindergarten teacher) speaks Spanish and I have noticed that it seems to help. Mrs. Brown does not use Spanish often, mainly she uses it to communicate with the parents who come in.  She also used it once while we were working in centers, I was trying to communicate the task at hand to a little boy, he just didn't seem to understand what I was saying.  Mrs. Brown spoke over my shoulder in Spanish and he seemed to understand.
During these early years in childhood language acquisition is at its peak.  Therefore, it is important that educators are constantly immersing the with all sorts of language to strengthen the child's understanding.  It has been amazing for me to see how well a given student can speak English in comparison with the non-English speaking parent.  At this early age, I believe that children pick up the language primarily through being constantly surrounded by it.  Teachers can also aid in the language acquisition process. I also think that a list of weekly vocabulary words (primarily for the first grade classroom and older), could greatly aid a classroom that is linguistically diverse.  Not only would this help ESL students learn more words more quickly, it would also help the native English students understand the origin and meaning of a given word.  I think that the Content Cognitive Dictionary could be a great strategy for teaching those new words.

Working One On One With Students

In both of my classes, I have recently been spending a lot of time helping students one on one.
The other day in Mrs. Brown's class (kindergarten) I helped a couple students point to the words and read their "Yy book".  Mrs. Brown asked that I made sure each child points to exactly the right word and says exactly the right name. Some students struggled with this.  One little girl in particular struggled. After several failed attempts to help her, I discovered that if I really slowed down she could mostly point to the right words. After some drilling she could point and read that book like a champ. I tried a similar approach with another little boy, it did not work at all. To me this seemed to point out that different individuals have different learning styles.
In Mrs. Heaps class, we have been working primarily on  writing stories. While working on a story about Johnny Appleseed with a little boy I noticed that he could tell me exactly what he wanted to write, he just had a little frustration trying to get it down on paper.  I believe that if I could find his preferred learning style, this child's ability to write stories would improve exponentially. This is why I believe Gardner's theory is so important.
Prior to the 1980's, when Gardner's theory became widely accepted, teachers were generally using a direct instructing approach. I believe that the multiple intelligence approach has greatly improved the classroom beyond what it was in the colonial or even the common school movement period.

Learning Modalities in the Classroom

One of the greatest struggles in education is confining different individuals, with different strengths and weaknesses, to a standardized curriculum. It's kind of like trying to fit a square piece into a heart shaped hole. 

From my experience in Mrs. Brown's (kindergarten) and Mrs. Heaps (first grade) classrooms I have noted that each child is totally unique, therefore they develop at their own unique pace. 

There are several factors that play into the way a child develops including genetics, parental involvement, and the learning style of the child among other factors.  One of the biggest ways that educators can positively impact the development of a child is through teaching the child according to the child's preferred learning modality.  The three learning modalities are auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Each individual has the ability to learn using any of these modalities, however, most people have a preferred learning modality that they seem to learn best with.  Because the majority of people are visual learners teachers tend to focus in on teaching through visual means. To best fulfill the needs of the class it is crucial that teachers also teach using auditory and kinesthetic  methods.  

In Mrs. Brown's class the students have been working on their letters.  While working on tracing the letter "S" one little girl did not seem to understand how to recreate the shape on her own. After a failed attempt to explain how to create the letter, I asked the little girl to hold the pencil with me as I traced the "S".  I had hoped that through holding the pencil with me she could better understand the letter through feeling the motion.  I saw her eyes light with delight, and believe it or not, her "S" improved.  It was beautiful to see! 

In Mrs. Heaps' class the students have been working on sums. It was interesting to see the different ways that the children would work out the problem.  Some children preferred to count with their fingers (which I assumed was kinesthetic), while other children preferred to draw pictures (visual).  

I have certainly grown an appreciation for how difficult a teacher's job really is.  Just from observing I can see how much teachers care for their students and their success.  I can see that teachers spend countless hours outside of the classroom creating new methods to help all of their students succeed.