Field Experience Reflection

Is fair and has good discipline.

What Makes a Good Teacher?

Has a good sense of humor/smiles.

Is kind and patient.

Sets a good example.

Is intelligent and knows the subject.

Understands and respects everyone as an individual.

Marquetta Strait April 15, 2013 EDUC: 421: Teaching Language Arts to Children Mrs. Saxon

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Marquetta Strait April 15, 2013 EDUC: 421: Teaching Language Arts to Children Mrs. Saxon

Field Experience Reflection

While completing my field experience for Teaching Language Arts to Children, I believe that I have grown professionally. I had the wonderful pleasure of being placed in Mrs. BenjaminDavis fourth grade classroom at Denmark-Olar Elementary School located in Denmark, South Carolina. Mrs. Benjamin-Davis teaches three fourth grade classes English Language Arts. She and her students were very welcoming and increased my desire to teach. I have enhanced my teaching skills, social relationship with students, and being able to manage the classroom. My teaching skills have been enhanced in the classroom. I have a passion for working with students and observing them grow intellectually. The students were a pleasure to work with and challenged my teaching skills. Being that I was completing my field experience during the spring semester, the workload was geared towards the PASS test. While in this class, I also worked with an English Language Learner for the National Professional Development (NPD) program. Being that the fourth grade classes are departmentalized, some days, the students have to go to the class where they have the weakest score. For example, if Michelles weakest score was in social studies, she would go to that class with all of the other students who have social studies as their weakest subject. Although my student is one of the top students in her class, she

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and some other top students were in the language arts classroom. The teacher had the students take a practice PASS test. The students were preparing to take the writing portion of the test that same week. On the test, the students were given several questions that asked them to choose the correct spelling of words, proper punctuation, capitalization, and proper use of language. After completing their test, the teacher reviewed with the students to survey the class. Majority of the class got their answers correct. I believe that working with an ELL was a great opportunity for me to get experience while in the classroom with the teacher. It allows me to keep some things in perspective, such as strategies to use while working with an ELL. In this case, she was one of the top students, which allowed her to work with other students well. She followed directions well and was always on task. Not only is instruction important in the classroom, but also, having a great social relationship with the students is essential to being able to keep a positive classroom atmosphere. Although Mrs. Benjamin-Davis taught three classes, I grew a better bond with her first class. While with this class, I assisted Mrs. Benjamin-Davis, the students, worked on the bulletin board, and graded assessments. There were a few misbehaving females, but as long as you had them separated, they worked well in the classroom. Some of the females were very talkative, but they did follow the teachers directions. There was a group of students that were constantly placed on silent lunch and being sent to the principals office. Lastly, I was able to manage the class well. When students were off task in the classroom, I would question whether they were finished and needed assistance. Usually they were not

finished with their assignment and just needed to be reprimanded on their talking. Much of the talking was due to the students being placed in groups or being off task. If the teacher stepped

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out of the classroom, I would make sure that I managed the class well to keep them working and on-task. As a future educator, I believe that a beginning teacher must be stern in the beginning and then loosen up. This way, the teacher has established the guidelines and there will be less discipline problems. I really believe that Mrs. Benjamin-Davis has not fully established this in her classroom because there are several behavioral problems in the classroom. As the leader of my classroom, I plan to get students to comprehend why their misbehavior is not appropriate. There are many obstacles that I have to overcome as a future educator. I plan to do this by setting goals. My goal that I would like to accomplish is to instill in my students to believe in

themselves and never believe that they are failures. I believe that all of the mentioned factors in conjunction with obtaining a good education, being knowledgeable of issues of education, and maintaining to aid our youth will allow me to become a successful educator.