REACTION PAPER

FIELD STUDY 1
EPISODES 1 - 6

Submitted by:
Shiela Marie Nazaret
DTS 1 – student

Submitted to:
Mr. Solomon C. Alcober, Ph.D.
FIELD STUDY 1: EPISODE 1 - THE SCHOOL AS A LEARNING
ENVIRONMENT

This episode provides an opportunity for students to examine and reflect on a

school environment that promotes learning and development. A conducive learning
environment would enable teachers to better manage, motivate and engage their
charges. This will bring about a fun, interesting and meaningful learning process,
whereby students anticipate attending the lessons while teachers anticipate
deliberating the lessons passionately. This enhances intuitive desire to interact,
create, and discover new ideas. The creation and development of learning areas in
the classroom gives children an opportunity to interact, shape their activities, remodel
their plays, and explore their own knowledge. A physical environment conducive for
learning is one that has consistent practices that keeps the school safe, clean, orderly,
and free from distraction; maintain facilities that provide challenging activities and
address the physical, social, and psychological needs of the students.

An effective school environment is an environment that is structurally built in

strong, clean external and in internal, free from noise of the outside world so that the
students will feel peaceful and concentrated. On the classroom part, one that is
conducive in learning is a classroom that has many charts, posters, sayings and
inspirational quotes as motivation and additional information to children. The effective
school must possess these kinds of aspects. These involve stimulating and secure
learning environment on which the students are free from any harm of accident.
Professional leadership must also take place because the learners always depend to
what the teacher instructs. Focus on teaching and learning are some points that
should have to take into consideration, too. There should have a purposefu l teaching,
shared vision and goals, high expectations of all learners, accountability and learning
communities. The school is a center of learning; therefore, its safety standards should
be tight to avoid accidents inside the classroom and the campus itself. Every learner
should be developed and given equal attention during classes, and they are expected
to follow instructions from their teachers. A school should be well organized to attract
learners to focus more on studies.
 EPISODE 2 – THE LEARNERS’ CHARACTERISTICS
AND NEEDS

Episode 2 highlights the differences in the characteristics and needs of learners

in different ages and grade levels. As a future teacher, it is very important for me to
determine my learners’ characteristics and needs so that I will be able to plan and
implement learning activities and assessment that are all developmentally appropriate.
The needs of learners should be considered within the contexts of - their current
physical, social, intellectual, and emotional development. the classroom and school
environment. the special nature of their communities. Every teacher must believe and
understand that all their learners ought to acquire equal hopes, education, and future
aspirations from their learning. On the other hand, the teacher must know that they will
meet learners with different dynamics during their teaching career. The main
difference is that some students will learn fast, and others will be slower. Again, they
will teach learners that are challenged or disabled in some way. In the light of this, it is
crucial that a teacher identify and meet the needs of every learner without
discrimination. It is important to identify and meet individual learner needs when
teaching in order to achieve quality – in the classroom, there are children with
behavioral, emotional, social, or other challenges that may limit their learning abilities.
Therefore, when the teacher identifies their weaknesses and applies measures to
overcome them, their learners acquire education without any barriers. This ensures
that the challenged learners do not feel left out or discriminated from the rest; to
develop talents - learners, especially young ones, are usually undergoing the
process of understanding their skills. The teacher, however, is experienced enough to
tell that a certain learner has a particular skill or talent. In this case, skills and talents
become needs too because they require nurturing to develop. Therefore, once the
teacher identifies them and provides the essential support to develop them, they help
the learners to discover and grow them; to create interest - promoting interest can
contribute to a more engaged, motivated, learning experience for students. As such,
when the teacher provides individually prescribed instruction, it significantly helps
many learners to understand and grasp educational concepts; to plan classroom
activities - once the teacher is familiar with the personal needs of their learners, they
can easily plan their day-to-day classroom activities, so they cater to all of them, so at
the end of the day, the learners’ needs are met; to organize the classroom - it is
paramount that the teachers identify and meet individual learner needs when teaching.
This is because it allows teachers to devote their energies beyond regular teaching
into effective education that is supportive and considerate for each learner. In this
way, the students are motivated, supported, empowered, and developed because
optimum learning conditions are created. Lastly, by knowing your learners, so you can
deliver exactly what they need and by having a deeper understanding of them, you
can approach them like a friend and guide them like a mentor to make them change
their behavior and attitudes.
 EPISODE 3 – CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
AND LEARNING

This episode provides an opportunity for me on how classrooms are

designed or structured to allow participation and effective learning. This overviews
about how classroom management practices affect learning to students. Classroom
management is important because it directly effects your student’s ability to learn and
your ability to teach also. It impacts a teacher's ability to be effective and actually
enjoy teaching. Most importantly, a well-managed classroom highly impacts students'
academic success. This increases student success by creating an orderly learning
environment that enhances students' academic skills and competencies, as well as
their social and emotional development. Effective classroom management strategies
involve organization, fostering good working relationships, as well as a disciplined yet
personable attitude. Deciding which techniques to use can nonetheless be difficult, as
every student and class is unique. As a teacher, the most important component here
is to develop effective working relationships with your students. The teacher should
have in mind that he or she mingles with students so that he or she will be more
careful while making the set of routines and should make it to a point that the students
are oriented, and they participate while making the rules. And also, the teacher should
prepare ice breakers so that the students will not get bored and will retain the interest
in studying. Those relationships are solidified when you got to spend individual time
with each student to get to know them and then use that knowledge to create personal
learning opportunities. You must focus on building a good relationship between your
students, set rules, boundaries, and expectations. Lastly, the primary goal of planning
of an effective classroom management is to assist the teachers in creating an
environment for all students that will allow them to be successful and ultimately reach
their full potential. If the student’s performance is good, then that is now the time that
you can say that the practices that you as a teacher made are effective and is
conducive to learning.
 EPISODE 4 – INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND LEARNERS’
INTERACTION
(Focusing on difference in gender, racial, religious backgrounds)

Episode 4 provides an opportunity for us aspiring teachers to know how

differences in gender, racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds affect interaction in
school, and learn about practices that teachers use in dealing with diversity in the
classroom. People may be different in many ways, including race or ethnicity, age,
disabilities, language, culture, appearance, or religion. With these, teachers can help
student feel valued and respected by promoting cultural awareness in the classroom,
which is a degree of understanding of people from various background There may be
individual differences in students because every member of an organization has its own
way of behavior. Thus, it is important to teachers to understand these differences
because teachers are the ones who influence the feelings, thoughts, and behavior of
the students. It is natural that we have our individual differences because we came from
different social and cultural background so it is understandable that everyone has
unique differences from others that will cause others to be interested and mingle to
them. If everyone is interested to each other, then interaction happens. As a future
educator, most likely I will treat my students fairly without any discriminations or
differences.

An effective teacher who celebrates student diversity in her classroom brings

each of the student’s home culture and language into the shared culture of the school,
uses strategies to build a caring community in the classroom, respects and accepts
different cultures and religions, and provide more opportunities for cooperation that
competition. When working and learning with people from a variety of backgrounds and
cultures present in the classroom, students gain a more comprehensive understanding
of the subject matter. It also teaches students how to use their own strengths and points
of view to contribute to a diverse working environment. Learning is most effective when
differences in learner's language, cultural, and social behavior are taken into account.
 EPISODE 5 – INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND LEARNERS’
INTERACTION
(Focusing on Different Levels of Abilities)

This episode provides an opportunity for me to know how differences in abilities

affects interaction in school and learn about strategies that teachers use in addressing the
learners’ different needs to effective learning. There are different abilities of the learners.
Teaching students on different learning levels can be difficult. However, learning to
differentiate learning abilities can help teachers present materials in a way that will
engage all students on all levels at the same time. Teaching students with various
learning abilities involves creativity, time, and a desire to understand how a student learns
best. With the right tools, teachers can reach each of their students no matter how
different the styles of learning may be. A teacher provides appropriate assistance to those
who needs her support the most. He/she must be approachable so that his/her students
will not be hesitant to ask every detail for the purpose of clarification of a certain topic
during the feedback session. The methods that the teacher will be using in class in
handling her students whether high or low achiever must be fair to everyone. The
connection/relationship of the teacher to students must be strong enough so that they may
be encouraged to learn with the lessons and may not feel discriminated at the same time.
An effective teacher remembers that the learners have different levels of ability, and
clearly let them know that their strengths are recognized and that everyone has the
chance to learn and succeed. The teacher helps create a learning community where
everyone can work together and contribute regardless of their abilities and capacities.

As a future teacher wherein, I appreciate the student’s diversity where students

differ in terms of their language, religion, perceptions, behaviors, and beliefs. I would study
each student background that enable me to determine their interest and needs of what are
the topic or lesson aligned to their needs. Then I will never forget this desire of letting the
students understand all of the lessons. It is not enough if only some can fully understand
it. It must be the class as a whole because all of them deserve equal right and treatment.
Being a teacher someday, I will implement fairness in the class. I will not focus just on the
intelligence itself but also on some talents that child will render. We know that everyone of
us has an ability to do things different from others. We have differences, thus there is no
high or low achievers beyond this because we are created equal.
 EPISODE 6: HOME – SCHOOL LINK

This episode provides opportunities for me to have a more in-depth study of

factors that affects the development of a learner. Focus will be on the early experiences
and characteristics of the learner as described by the family and other significant
others. Studies show that a strong connection between home and school benefits
children tremendously. Students whose parents stay actively involved in their education
do better in school and demonstrate a higher attendance rate, better social skills, and
an increased graduation rate. Children learn best when the significant adults in
their lives -parents, teachers, and other family and community members work
together to encourage and support them. This basic fact should be a guiding
principle as we think about how schools should be organized and how children
should be taught. Schools alone cannot address all of a child's developmental
needs: The meaningful involvement of parents and support from the community
are essential. All the experiences children have, both in and out of school, help
shape their sense that someone cares about them, their feelings of self-worth
and competency, their understanding of the world around them, and their
beliefs about where they fit into the scheme of things. These days, it can take
extraordinary efforts to build strong relationships between families and
educators. Schools have to reach out to families, making them feel welcome as
full partners in the educational process. Families, in turn, have to make a
commitment of time and energy to support their children both at home and at
school. The home-school connection of the learner really helps a lot in her
development. Through this, student will be guided of her behaviors because
what she learns in school is she can apply it to her home, and also what she
learned from home, she can apply it to school like the morals and values of
what the parents taught him/her. A family is one factor that contributes to the
development and learning of the child because if the learner has a good family
background, then her development will be good.