Fieldwork Reflection 9/23/14

I am currently observing a fourth grade classroom in a school in Marin County. The

teacher I am observing is spectacular with her students. Her classroom is a great
environment and I really feel like I will learn a lot in the next couple of weeks. On my
own time, I have been volunteering in a fifth grade classroom of a good friend of mine
who just started teaching this year. I find it very interesting to observe a teacher who has
been working for 20 some years, and a teacher who is still figuring out what to do. In
comparing the two teachers, I have found it intriguing that although their experiences
are not the same, their teaching abilities are fairly similar. Three examples of this that I
have noticed while in the classroom are discipline, student-teacher interactions, and
student assessments.
Both teachers discipline their students well; their pupils listen attentively and
respectfully. However their discipline styles are not very similar. The older teacher, lets
call her Mrs. X, does not accept any behavior issues from her students. She tells them
what she expects from them, and she reminds them that they are perfectly capable of
following the directions if they listen the first time. The newer teacher, we can call her
Mrs. Z, does not allow her students to misbehave either. However she gives her
students chances to redeem themselves. The first time I observed her in the classroom,
she warned me that should would be more mean than I was used to her being. She

told me that an experienced teacher told her, First impressions are everything. You can
start off mean and work your way down to nice. But you cant start off nice and work
your way up to mean. Mrs. X and Mrs. Z have different ways of handling classroom
behaviors, but in the end they both work for their own classes. A good teacher gets to
know their students in order to understand what must happen to create a cohesive
classroom unit.
Student-teacher interactions can vary in every classroom because it all depends on
the different personalities in the group. Mrs. Z treats her students as her friends as well
as her students, while Mrs. X makes sure her students know that she is boss. A good
example of this is her rewards system, or their paychecks. Throughout the week the
students are given a pay stub on which they keep track of points/money earned or lost
for things like 100% on a test or disrespectful towards others. And at the end of the
week a parent signs the paper and they can use the money they earned towards
prizes like pencils, erasers, or stickers. Mrs. Z has reward systems as well, but the
paycheck teaches students that Mrs. X is the boss. They way the two teachers interact
with their students may be different, but I have noticed that the classes love their
teachers equally and show the same amount of appreciation and respect for their
teachers.

Lastly, I noticed that the teachers ways of assessing their students are not the same,
yet they are equally effective. Mrs. X mostly has the students correct their own work.
She will occasionally skim through the pile of papers to make sure her students are on
the right track but other than that the students are completely responsible for their
corrections. Mrs. Z however does most of her own correcting when it comes to papers
and homework. Although this makes more work for her, she can ensure that she knows
her students are engaged and learning. She has other ways of assessing her students
learning that are more hands on and that correlate with TPE 2 - Monitoring Student
Learning. She walks around her classroom, asks her students questions, and has them
work in pairs to discuss their answers. I would say that even though the way they correct
homework is very different, both teachers are very good at assessing and monitoring
their students learning.
Before my time in these classrooms, I would have thought that two teachers with
extremely different experience levels, would also have at least somewhat different ability
levels. However, the two teachers are both fantastic in their own ways, and are both very
capable. They just have teaching styles that are not exactly the same. For the most part,
teaching is not a skill that you can be taught, it is instinct and natural capabilities; which
both of the teachers I have been observing posses. Overall I would have to say that I am

gaining an equally amount of wonderful experience from them and I could not ask for
two better people to observe.

Fieldwork Reflection 10/21/14

At this point in my observations after working a combined total of 26 hours, I can say
that I have learned a lot. I have picked up different skills and lessons plans that I would
definitely want to use one day. The fourth grade teacher I am observing likes to have a
specific project or lesson plan she wants to show me each week I come in. She always
has something that she says she couldnt live without, shows it to me, and then lets me
keep any paperwork that goes with it. The fifth grade teacher I am observing has
pushed me to be very interactive with her students. I work with her students one-on-one,
and I have also gotten up and corrected classwork with the students while the teacher
worked with students one-on-one. What I enjoy most about going to two different
classes is that I am expanding my teaching skills through observation and participation.
One lesson plan that I enjoyed learning about the most was a place value collage,
which was an art integrated math lesson plan. I had told the teacher what my Capstone
research is about and she arranged her day so that I would be able to observe this
amazing lesson. The goal was for students to create a collage that represents a 6 or 7
digit number by assigning specific paper colors, sizes and textures to each place value.

The lesson meets both Common Core State standards for math and the California visual
art content standards. The teacher started off the lesson by introducing the artists
Kandinsky and Albuquerque and asked the students to reflect on what they saw. Then
she introduced the lesson and during my time there I was able to see the first half of
their projects, and next week I will be able to see the final product. The students had to
pick a number with 6 or 7 digits and assign certain size circle for each digit. What was
great about this lesson is that it was a fun art project, but the students were also
practicing place value, a concept they had been learning during math. After the lesson,
the teacher handed me a huge packet with all the information I would need if I ever
wanted to teach this lesson myself one day.
My favorite part about working in the fifth grade classroom is I dont just feel like Im
observing the class because the teacher includes me and I feel like I am her co-teacher.
She has me work with the students one-on-one when they did not do or need help with
the homework from the night before. Or if she needs to do one-on-one assessments
with her students, she has me walk around the class, helping the students with whatever
they are working on for any particular lesson. One lesson implementation strategy that I
learned from her was Keep It, Junk It, Cloud It. The students work in groups to pick
vocabulary words from a text and decided if they should keep it, junk it, or cloud it. I was
there the first time the students (and the teacher) tried it, and now after several weeks,

the students love it. It gives them the chance to decide what they think is important. At
first the teacher had to help the students decide what words should be highlighted in
their text, but after several weeks of using this strategy, the students have learned how
to do it on their own.
Although I have only a couple more weeks of visiting the classrooms, I hope to make
the most of my time there. I want to learn as much as I can, and continue to gain
experience in the classroom, so I will most likely continue going to the classroom even
after I have met my required hours. Although my visits to their classrooms have beeb
very different, the two teachers are helpful, inspirational, and have provided me with
many useful teaching strategies.

Fieldwork Reflection 3/16/15

My fieldwork experience this semester has been quite different from past
semesters. I am a part of an internship through Youth In Arts (YIA) and once a week I
assist the main art teacher in two kindergarten classrooms, instead of going to a regular
classroom. We have done many different types of art lessons including mixing paints,
creating creatures with modeling clay, and making three dimensional playgrounds. My
job is to take pictures of the students, help them with the projects, set up and clean up

the projects, and I am currently putting together photo albums for the classes that will be
on display along with some of the art work at the end of the month.
Cheyanne Williams, who is my co-presenter for NCUR (National Conference of
Undergrad Research), and I are using this internship as part of research for our
Capstone research paper. Our paper is titled The Art of Integration and we are
focusing on how the arts can be helpful in improving all aspects of a childs education.
We are writing about what we have observed during our time in the classroom in our
paper, and our research has shown that the arts are great for helping students in other
subject areas. What is great about this fieldwork semester, is that even though Im not
doing it in the traditional way, I am still learning a great deal from the art instructor, as
well as the two kindergarten teachers in the classes. I am able to observe parts of their
lessons in the morning as we set up, and I am able to ask the teachers any questions I
have in between lessons. The students are so sweet and creative and talented. The
second week we were there, one of the kindergarten teachers told me, I wish they
could do this all the time, its so good for them!
Along with my non-traditional fieldwork experience, I have still be volunteering in
some of the classrooms I have previously done my fieldwork in. I have gone to what
feels like so many different classrooms in this program, and each one has been unique
and taught me many different things. My favorite classroom is a fifth grade class, and I

always thought I could never teach fifth grade because the kids were too old and the
subject matter was harder to teach. But throughout my time there, that class has taught
me that fifth grade is an amazing grade to work with. They are smart, creative, and
loving and not harder to teach than younger grades, but just different. I am glad I still
have these connections to past classrooms, because my favorite weeks are when I get
to volunteer in more than one classroom.
Although my experience has been quite different this semester, it has still been a
good one. I have gained experience in areas that my peers might not have been able to,
and I have made a large network of connections through this project. The YIA family has
been so warm and welcoming, and I have loved going to their office on Wednesday
afternoons after going to the classroom. I sit at a desk and get to creative the photo
albums that will be displayed for each class at the end of the program. It probably
doesnt sound like great teaching experience to sit at a desk and glue pictures down, but
I like to think that everything I do in life is a great experience that helps further my skills,
which leads to being a better teacher. A large part of being a teacher is life skills.