Whitney Toler

Looking Back, Looking Forward Reflection

Four months ago I began a journey that would be a life changing

experience for me. Sitting in orientation, I discovered I would be
completing my student teaching at Challenger Elementary. I would be
placed in Ms. Gambles first grade classroom and Mrs. Debows selfcontained Autism Unit for second and third graders. The long thirty-five
to forty minute drive did not sound appealing to me, but I told myself
that I was going to make the best of the situation because I heard
these were the best two teachers anyone could ask for and I truly do
believe that they were. I could not have asked for better cooperating
teachers to teach me and help me grow both educationally and as a
person over the two months I spent with them.
To say that I did not make any mistakes during student teaching
would be a lie. For instance, one thing I learned was to prepare for
students even if they are not supposed to be in your classroom during
certain times of the day. For my first observation, I prepared an
awesome, hands-on lesson. The students were going to create fossils
with their hands. However, one of my students was suppose to be in
the resource room during this time. Unexpectedly, the resource
teacher became ill and took half a day leave and the child was sent
back to the classroom. After setting out all the materials ahead of time,

I had not included him in the activity. After a lot of scrambling around
to find an extra plate and running to the teacher next door to find more
plaster of paris, my student was able to create a fossil with his
handprint. Needless to say, I will always prepare for all students even if
they are supposed to be out of the room during this time period. As a
result of this experience, I learned the importance of flexibility and
being prepared for the unexpected.
One way my beliefs in teaching changed was I always thought
asking higher-level question would not be difficult. I always thought
higher-leveled questions would just come naturally to me but I found
asking them to be extremely difficult in my first grade classroom. I
would find myself trying to rack my brain to think of a different
question to ask that would challenge my students, but instead it would
cause management problems because the time that it took me to think
about a really good question created a brief moment of silence. In my
first grade and collaborative class, I found it easy to ask synthesis
questions but to ask anything other above comprehension was a
struggle. As a result I quickly learned, in both my first grade
placement and my collaborative placement, to make the students tell
me how they came up with the answer they gave me. The students
were not allowed to just give me their answer and be done with it.
They had to explain why their response was the correct answer. I did
this for multiple reasons. I wanted to know their train of thought and

that they had put thought into their answer. The second reason was so
that other students could know where they got the answer from and
hear the answer given from someone other than myself. As I spent
more time with the students it became a natural thing for the students
to answer a question and immediately tell me how they arrived at the
answer. Even Ms. Gamble, my first grade cooperating teacher, said
that after I left and she took the class back, her students were still
telling her how they arrived at an answer without her even asking
them.
I strongly believe that my two strongest areas of teacher were
diversity and assessment. After administering my learning style
inventory to my grade classroom, I discovered that the majority of
them were hands- on learners. While I did not make every lesson
hands-on, for those students who were tactile learners, I tried to
implement as much hands-on activity as possible. Almost every day in
science there was a hands-on activity, and I tried my best to
implement them as much as possible during reading and math. In
math we used our tens and ones counters and in reading we used
spelling tiles or letter beads and the students were instructed to spell
out their spelling words. This seemed to really help the students grasp
the concepts quicker than they would without the manipulative. In my
collaborative placement, diversity was very key because each student
had a different need. What worked for one student might not work for

the students sitting beside him. Therefore, there were many different
concepts presented in several different ways. For instance, with one
student it would help for them to complete a cut and paste worksheet
that had them sort or place in order a series of events. In the same
lesson, another student copied the series of events instead of
completing the cut and paste worksheet because it is what works best
for him. My collaborative class completed a great deal of worksheets
because only one student was very verbal, while the others were either
nonverbal or they had a hard time articulating their work but they were
able to complete any worksheet.
Another area of strength would be assessment. I was constantly
using formative assessment on my students before it was time to
move on to the next topic. For both my first grade and collaborative
placement, it would not good to move on to the next topic until they
were able to get a good grasp on the material they were currently
learning. For instance, in my collaborative placement we would review
the same concepts throughout the week and they were assessed daily
on how much of the concept they were retaining. On Monday, they
would have no knowledge of the concept introduced in class but by
Friday, with constant review, they would be able to complete any
worksheet or activity about a given concept.
One area of weakness I knew had to improve on in student
teaching was communication. At times, I felt as though I have too

many thoughts going through my brain that I want to share with the
class and I have a hard time deciding what I was actually going to say.
Being in first grade and a collaborative placement, I quickly found out
that I can share all the information that is in my brain but it must be
done in small increments. During my educational classes they always
told us to give clear and precise directions. However, being clear and
precise, relates to teaching and not just giving directions. I have found
it is also important to be able to disseminate information in small
increments. For example, give them some information, ask a few
questions in order for them to process the new material and then
continue with the lesson. The students do not process the lesson if
they are overloaded with information. Especially in both of my
placements, being overwhelmed with too much information would
have created a pathway for a breakdown.
The second thing I knew I desperately needed to improve on was
my classroom management skills. Since I only really observed and
taught a few lesson before student teaching, always with a teacher in
the room, I never really had the opportunity to implement any of my
own management strategies that I learned in the classroom at UAH.
My first grade teacher already had the behavior clip chart is place so I
continued to use that, but after a while the students did not care if
they moved their clip so I tried something new and it worked very well.
I wrote the word FREE on the board. When the majority of students did

not get quiet after being told a couple of times or were talking in a hall
or any unwanted behavior as a group I would remove a letter. If the
students lost all letters they would lose time off playtime at the end of
the day. Even though they never lost the full word, once they lost the
first letter the behavior of the class improved dramatically. In my
collaborative placement, I learned the importance of sticker reward
systems and cool downs. My teacher had implemented a sticker reward
system; whenever a student did an awesome job in small group or
individual time they received a sticker. When they filled up their square
with stickers they were rewarded by being able to go to the treasure
box. However, this was not effective for all students. If the sticker
system did not work for a particular student, I utilized the cool down
method. Whenever a student was displaying an unwanted behavior
they were asked to sit at their desk for a short period of time to think
about the way they were behaving and for a cool down. After this short
period of time they were called back to be with the group. This was
very effective because the students did not want to be sent to their
seats. I also learned that being in a special education classroom,
micromanaging is essential. This includes making sure all students are
on task and not trying to hurt themselves or others.
Looking back, I realized how hard I worked and how much I
learned. After completing all my course work I discovered that even
though our teachers at UAH did an extraordinary job giving us the

knowledge and tools to prepare us for the teaching profession, a

person never fully is ready until they experience teaching in an actual
classroom. My students taught me more than any professor or
cooperating teacher could and I am thankful for that. Looking forward, I
hope the next time I begin school it will be as a teacher not a student. I
plan to implement the things that I have learned in both my placement
at Challenger Elementary and UAH.