Demographics of School - There is approximately 40 teachers and the student to teacher ratio is 14.5. The number of students enrolled is 572. The breakdown into race/ethnicity is as follows: American Indian/Alaskan = 11, Asian/Pacific Islander = 13, Black = 0, Hispanic = 208, White = 336.
Number of Students in Class - 21
Cooperating Teacher - Mrs. Tera Jeffs - How is your relationship with your cooperating teacher? Explain. This has been a good experience for me. The teacher did express how good Morgan and I were for the students and a help to her when it came to teaching mini-lessons and helping her grade papers. She loved having us come into class and she would give us teaching tips on the methods she has found that works and some management techniques to help the students pay more attention.
- How does she feel about the technology piece we created? She really like the pictures and video clips that we had found. She felt like the music that we choose went well with the feel of our digital story. She thought it was something that the students could really get into. When we showed her our rough draft of it she gave us some tips on some kinds of music we could add since we needed another one to finish up the project. I felt this was great, because another opinion is a nice thing to have.
- How does she feel about the lesson you completed? She gave Morgan and I several tips on how to improve in management techniques, but she was really impressed in our lesson plans and thought they were well explained. She did think the class we were teaching was really talkative, but they got better as our lessons progressed and they knew more about us.
- How did the training session go? Explain. We didn't have enough time to go over everything in detail, but Morgan and I were able to answer her questions she had about it. We told her about several websites like Creative Commons and Zamzar to help her find images and sound clips to help her as resources. We were able to show here how to edit video clips and change the transition times for the pictures.
- How do you feel about this service-learning? I think it is good to be sharing our knowledge with others because teachers help each other because our goals are often the same, to help students learn. By sharing and having these resources available then as teachers we can share the info and expand knowledge.
- What did your cooperating teacher gain from this experience? I think she really enjoyed having Morgan and I participate in her class. She liked that we were willing to teach other lessons besides Social Studies and helping her out with reading groups. she said that she liked how we interacted with the students and could relate to thing they were sharing. It was also great being able to talk about our school experience and was interested in hearing what we were doing in our classes, like technology.
- What did I gain from the experience? This was a fun learning experience for me. I just felt like I grew more from a personal perspective as well as a professional one. Just being in the classroom for that time was an opportunity to really get to know the kids and see their personalities and how they contribute to the class. It was great being able to help a few of them one-on-one understand a topic/subject better, like math. I have also noticed a change in myself. Often times when I get too excited or nervous about things I begin to stutter or talk really fast. As the time progressed I became more aware of it and was able to pace myself more. The next step would be to work on explaining my directions/instructions more clearly. So I know for the Field Experience in the Spring some of the things I can do to improve, so by this time next year, I should be a lot better off.
- Was it worth it? Why or why not? I believe this experience was totally worth it. Technology plays a major role in schools and rely on it for many projects. It is cool to see they have computers available in the classroom for the students to use. Back when I was in Elementary School we had computer time once a week for 30-45 minutes....things have really changed in so many ways. As a new graduate of college it looks good on job applications if one was able to know computers and technology and hopefully will give them a leg up in the interview.
This past week we were able to teach the students about propoganda in WWI and what it does. A lot of the kids didn't know what it was until we started telling them places today that have modern types of propoganda like magazines, newspapers, tv, billboards, internet etc. So after that we showed the students a video entitled "The Amazing Brick." The kids were laughing all the way through it. Then we were able to also show the students a slide show we created using imovie to show the students of example of WWI propoganda. After that the students were able to create their own modern version of propoganda about their favorite tv show, book, or candy bar/food. Some of them were quite creative.We were also able to show our cooperating teacher Mrs. Jeffs how to create her own digital story, and she seemed really interested. I will have to include this interaction in more detail in my service learning paper.I will be very sad when this semester is finished with Field Experience. I have learned so much and have become attached to the students. Doing this has definitely strenghtened my motivation to become a great Elementary Teacher.
It would seem when there are a lot of projects going on and homework assignments due that blogs would be easier to remember but for some reason it seemed to slip my mind this time. I know this won't be terribly late, but I still feel bad I forgot. It seems like I can remember lesson plans and the kids names, but this is more difficult for some reason, hopefully next week will improve.This past week Morgan and I taught our first lesson. It was on the 4 main causes of WWI. As a part of the introduction we were able to show the students our digital story. It turned out easier then I thought and the feedbacak we got from the teacher and the students was great. When we showed our teacher (Mrs. Jeffs) how to create her own, she seemed excited to try it out.Also this past week while observing in the class we were able to watch the students work on writing projects and take some tests on the labtops that were in the room. This makes it easier for the teacher to grade and it makes sure it is legible. Plus in this day and age it is good to integrate it in because the stuents know how to use a computer and it is good for them to practice typing.This whole experience has been great and I am excited to teach the rest of the lessons this week. Hopefully all goes well.
On Monday, we were just able to work on our digital stories. My partner and I made great progress and we are to the stage where we are adding final touches. I have to admit I really like how it is turning out. We were even able to show a rough copy to our cooperating teacher and she really liked what we had so far. So I'm hoping when we use it as part of our Social Studies lesson this upcoming week that all will go well.It was pretty exciting to start field this past week. I was a bit nervous going in there, but lucky for Morgan and I there were a few kids who really warmed up to us quickly. Shortly after being in the classroom I looked to see what kind of technology they were using. They had at least 4 desktop computers many more labtops for the children to use. It was impressed that they basically had enought computers for each child. They also had a Smart Board in the classroom. I have used those before and they are really nice. The teacher used it for several of her lessons and made it interactive and the children were able too complete anything for themselves. Then the last technology piece that the class had was a microphone that hung around the teachers neck. I had seen this before, but they were all getting used to it. It was fun to watch the children's expression when they could borrow the microphone to speak.The teacher seems to be knowledable about technology and the kids are able to use the computers quite a bit to type up some writing assignments as final drafts. I am sure in the next 2 1/2 weeks that I will see it more and get to try out some of them myself. It is a great teaching tool and keeps teaching fun and interesting.
