Last Post

I first of all just want to say how much I enjoyed my experience in field!! I loved the students in my class and I already miss them. They are great kids and very fun to work with.

1. Explain the most challenging part during your field experience.

The hardest part of field for me was classroom management. I was very lucky to get the teacher that I did because she was a fantastic teacher and was great at classroom management. I learned many techniques and skills from her that I will forever be grateful for. She made managing the classroom look so easy but i found out it takes a lot of work. Learning to manage a class takes time and practice and I was grateful for the experience that I had to learn.

2. Explain your greatest success during your field experience

I think my greatest success during field was that I became a better teacher and a better person after completing the experience. I was very lucky to get the teacher that I did. Saying that she was an incredible teacher is an understatement. My cooperating teacher truly cared about her students and helping them learn and grow as individuals. I learned so much from her that will help me to become a better teacher. I think that a success for me was having the chance to teach and learning that I really could do it and that I enjoyed teaching. I have always loved helping others and this experience has increased my love for helping others to learn and to grow.

3. What recommendations would you make to others based on your field experience?

My biggest recommendation to others is to enjoy the experience. Enjoy the time that you have with your students and in the classroom because it goes by fast, way too fast. Value the time that you have and enjoy it. 

Final Post

Most Challenging:
For me the most challenging part is preparing, especially preparing with another person. I make lesson plans, but I don't always stick to them. I'm not a rule follower when it comes to teaching; I let the students guide the lesson. I feed off of them and get all of my energy from them. It is very difficult to plan and teach with others when you teach differently.

Greatest Success:
I think my greatest successes were the first and last lessons that I taught. I was so confident in front of the class- when I'm teaching it's like no one else is even there. The only thing I care about are the kids. I think I was also very good at demanding there attention and respect. I never had any classroom management issues with them and they always knew that I was just as important as their teacher. I felt like they paid attention and participated and that definitely made me feel successful!

Recommendations: 
I recommend getting to know all of your students. You can feel that they trust you once you know about them and spend time talking to them. I also recommend using as many resources as you can! My cooperating teacher helped us out a lot and gave us a lot of ideas. Use as much as you can! As Axel says- beg, borrow, and steal! :) Also- don't panic! It is overwhelming- that's just the profession that we are going into. But I found it a lot easier to stay calm when I started seeing it as a learning experience. We are so privileged to go into these classrooms, and we have so many resources and wonderful people to learn from.

I would also recommend not putting too much into one lesson. This is SO SO important! Our teachers always say simple is better. You can NOT fit an entire unit in one lesson! Our time was limited and we were not expected to cover everything.

I was so sad to go. The day before my last day with them I cried after I left the school! I was just heartbroken. I told them I will definitely be back to visit. On the last day they all told me how happy they were to have me. A few kids said that I helped them with subjects that they didn't understand and that meant the world to me. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to work with them.

Week 3

Most challenging: This last week I was able to do my teaching and I taught the fourth grade class on prime numbers and composite numbers. I felt very prepared and thought this would be a very smooth lesson to teach. The time was pretty accurate but some of the worksheets and activities we did I could have been more clear and have done the activities a different way so they understood better. So my most challenging part was to teach in the most clear [fourth grade mind].


Greatest success: Those were the fastest three weeks ever! But in that short time period I learned so much about myself. It was a great way to see my strengths and definitely the many of things I need to improve on and really learn before I become a teacher. I am so grateful for the cooperating teacher I had and am grateful for the chance I had to observe her and see how she handled her students in many different situations. I would say my greatest success would be the love I felt for the students. I truly had such a strong desire to help them succeed and be happy. The best thing was helping them understand something they didn't before and once it clicked how they would just light up and be so proud of themselves.


Recommendations: My recommendations for myself and my classmates is to think like the students. Think of ways that would connect and make the most sense. Think of fun ways to learn and remember subjects and activities. Prepare your lessons to be fun but also challenge the students so they push themselves to learn. They will have more respect for you as a teacher and themselves if they understand the importance of knowledge and learning in the classroom.

Final Post

Explain the most challenging part during your field experience: I think the thing I struggled with the most during field is timing, I am really bad at keeping my lessons in the right time frame. I like all the student input and comments and it is hard for me to cut them off and move on when there are still students who want to contribute. I got better at moving forward throughout field my first lesson I had to stop in the middle of it because I ran out of time, the other 3 lessons I taught were much closer to my time limit but it is still something I struggle with. Explain your greatest success during your field experience.: I think my greatest success was really caring about the students, I learned their names quickly, got to know them and tried to individualize my lessons to the students. I really want to do a great job and I put a lot of effort and thought into my lesson plans. What recommendations would you make to others based on your field experience? Have your lessons planned out ahead of time so that you can just make small adjustments while in field. Plan a pre-test and a post-test that is the same so you can really gauge what the students learned. Learn the students names day 1 (or 2) because it lets them know how important they really are.

Week #3

This week was so great, I am so sad to say goodbye to the students. My last lesson was on the last day of field, I did a blow the roof off activity to review for their test, they were so into it. I spent a lot of time thinking of things that the little girl in my class who was mute could do, and she was not even there for the activity. I was really bummed out because I thought it would be something fun that she could be included in. The whole time I was in field the students were working on research and presentations for their reports on an ancient civilization, Friday they presented. It was so awesome, parents came to watch and the whole class did amazing. I ended up spending a lot of the time I was there helping students who were not finished, finish their projects so they were able to present. I am so excited to come back to class and hear about everyone's experiences. See you Soon.

Final Blog Post

Explain the most challenging part during your field experience.

The most challenging part during my field experience was trying to get all the numerous assignments completed throughout field and not just leaving it until the last minute right before its due. Sadly even though I was able to stay pretty on top of things I still left the assignments for creative arts to the last minute. I think if I am ever going to be an effective teacher I am gonna have to get better at getting things done earlier than required of me. Through all the stresses of getting assignments done I still had a wonderful time while in field.

Explain your greatest success during your field experience.

My greatest success during my field experience would have to be the timing... When we taught our lessons it seemed as though we were over planning to the extreme but then when it came down to it we were perfect on the timing. Especially when our observer came for the first time, we were so so worried about getting through everything in 25 minutes and surprisingly we did just that fantastically. We said the last thing we wanted to say and bam the bell rang.

What recommendations would you make to others based on your field experience?

The only recommendation I would make to others based on my field experience would have to be "just get it done now" meaning that instead of putting things off until the week before the end of field instead you should get started on everything that is gonna be due, on the first week of field.

Final Week

1. Explain the most challenging part during your field experience. I think the most challenging part was working with the student I chose to focus on for Dr. Byrd's ZPD assignment. The resource teacher said he had completely checked out of school mentally, but I could still see a spark of interest he just didn't seem to know quite what to do with. Writing anything for him was especially difficult. Spelling has always come very easy to me, but it wasn't for him; grammar was also very troublesome for him. I did my best to help him make progress, but I left feeling that I hadn't succeeded in that area at all. I hope I at least encouraged him to keep reading and acknowledge his small successes.
2. Explain your greatest success during your field experience. My greatest success... probably the lessons I taught with Karen. There was a bit of a learning curve in regards to being able to work with the students, but I feel like I came out the other side with a new level of understanding in regards to classroom management. I personally still have a ways to go with that, but I really think the lessons we taught were pretty awesome.
3. What recommendations would you make to others based on your field experience? Every day is a new chance to try again if the day before wasn't so great, and not just for you, but the cooperating teacher and the students, too. Also, positivity doesn't always come naturally when you're working with a student who is struggling with self-confidence in their academic abilities. Sometimes I wanted to express frustration when a student wasn't understanding something I was trying to explain, but I didn't allow myself to give up. Staying positive seemed to encourage better results. And lastly, find ways to connect with your students. I managed to connect with a few who liked video games due to the fact that my husband loves playing games himself. I was even able to relate some of the games to what the students were learning about. If you can understand their likes and communicate on their level, you can go so far with them. I loved every day that I was out there, and I can't wait to do it again next semester!