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Alyssa Daffron
Educ-M403 Technology In The Classroom
Dr. Conner-Zachocki
21 February 2015
Field Reflection 1
Field experience this week was pretty normal for the first part of the day. Mrs.
Denniston had morning meeting with the students to check on their homework and to
take attendance. The class also did morning announcements, the pledge, and the
moment of silence. This week was Valentines Day so students brought valentines for
each other. They were told to pass out the valentines they brought. They only had ten
minutes to pass out the valentines and they were told not to open or look at any
valentines until after school was over.
After morning meeting, announcements, and valentines were finished the day
progressed as usual. The students were broken into groups for language arts. The
students worked on grammar. Mrs. Denniston worked with a group that was reading
and doing vocab words, another group worked on the computer using games to practice
grammar skills and the last group worked in the hall doing synonyms and antonyms for
their vocab words and working on their posters. The posters had to feature an Indiana
river with a fish or plant overpopulation pictured. Students on the computers were
allowed to pick their own game as long as the game was productive for grammar
practice and all the groups were working on comprehension.
Groupwork and cooperative learning decrease the amount of teacher-centered
whole-group instruction by asking small groups of students to do different activities at

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the same time (Maloy, 2014). This idea was demonstrated during the math groups this
week. Mrs. Denniston taught one group a minilesson, another group was on
chromebooks, and the last group was in the hall with Mrs. Gerth and I. The group on
the chromebooks was working on frontrow, which is like my math lab. It allows students
to pick a topic or subject to work on and gives the students problems to work through.
The group in the hall was working on a Cupid Graphing Problem. Students were given
the X-coordinate value and had to find the Y-coordinate value by adding numbers
together. After the Y-coordinate value was found the students had to place the point on
the graph using the X and Y-coordinates. After the dot was placed, students drew lines
to connect the dots and complete the image on the paper. Mrs. Gerth and I were
helping the students if they had trouble with the graphing aspect of the problem.
The social studies lesson worked on vocab words as well. The students received
a packet and were told to read through it and answer the multiple choice questions and
two of the short answer questions. They were then asked to use their vocab words in
relation to the packet on a vocab sheet.
At lunch Mrs. Gerth and I asked Mrs. Denniston about teacher evaluations and
the Istep testing. We were told that teachers were affected by the whole schools
performance as well as their own classs performance. Due to the problems around the
Istep this year, schools have requested that the link for the Istep to affect the teachers
evaluations be frozen for a year to prevent any complications from affecting teachers
negatively. Teachers are evaluated by their principal. They are evaluated by a four
page rubric and if they receive an average score of three or higher they are given a
raise every year. Each year teachers pick a goal to focus on. They are to self-evaluate

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themselves and provide three to four pieces of evidence per criteria of their goal.
During lunch, Mrs. Denniston pulled out her back and had to go home. We were left
with a substitute teacher who did not know how the class usually ran.
Mrs. Gerth and I assisted the substitute teacher for the rest of the day. We knew
how the class schedule usually worked because we had been there the previous two
Thursdays. We helped run the Language Arts lessons. The students had groups for
these lessons as well. Some students worked on projects, some students read silently,
and other students wrote stories that they had been working on. For students in
schools, computers transform the process of expressing ones ideas creatively using
writing (Maloy, 2014). Some students that used this chance for creativity to worked on
projects such as I wonders where they come up with a question; such as, how many
hybrid animal species are there and they try to answer it. Students can pick their own
topic and they do all the research. They then put their research on a PowerPoint and
present it to the class. Giving students the chance to research a chosen topic allows
them to stay interested in school and encourages them to ask questions and search for
the answers. For students, the joy and purpose of learning is taken away as they have
fewer and fewer opportunities to explore topics that do not appear on tests (Maloy,
2014). The students switched groups after about twenty minutes. The students also
worked with a partner on a Mad Lib, which is a part of speech assignment. Students
are given a paper with a story on it that has blanks. The students work with a partner to
finish the story by asking their partner for different parts of speech; such as, noun, verb,
adjective, and adverb.

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After the Language Arts lesson Mrs. Gerth and I read to the students. Mrs. Gerth
read from a novel for about ten minutes. When she was finished I read the quote of the
day and discussed the meaning of it with the class. After this the students had a small
Valentines Day party. Students passed out treats and talked quietly to each other.
While the students ate their treats I read to them from the novel for about fifteen more
minutes until they were dismissed for the day.
The class showed community this week by being generous and giving to each
other. Students decorated their own Valentines box and brought it into school. Many
students complimented each other on their creativity with their design. The students
also all brought valentines for everyone in the classroom. This helped them to see that
everyone in the classroom was equally important and that everyone had something
different to offer.

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Work Cited
Maloy, R. (2014). Ch. 3 Transforming Learning with Unique, Powerful Technology.
InTransforming learning with new technologies (2nd ed., p. 61 & 63). Boston:
Pearson.
Maloy, R. (2014). Ch. 4 Designing Lessons and Developing Curriculum with
Technology. InTransforming learning with new technologies (2nd ed., p. 87).
Boston: Pearson.