Reflection Service Learning Assignemt

SERVICE LEARNING ASSIGNMENT
We (Sarah Taylor and Debra Ward) completed our field work at Ridgeline Elementary in Highland, Utah. Our cooperating teacher was Miss Reinhart. There are 34 students in the class and the majority of them come from families who are from the middle to upper class.

We had a really good relationship with our cooperating teacher. She was willing to share her knowledge and resources with us. She helped us in getting involved with her students by inviting us to play games, letting us tutor her students as they completed writing projects, and giving us the opportunity create a bulletin board in the hall. She let us teach her students without interference and instructed her students to be on their best behavior for us. She also helped boost our confidence in teaching.

Miss Reinhart liked our digital story (I-Movie) on “The Lewis and Clark Expedition”. We used the digital story as a review on the second day of our lesson. She really liked our lesson and we were successful in teaching our students about Lewis and Clark. The students enjoyed watching the movie, also, and were able to learn some important facts about Lewis and Clark’s Expedition.

Miss Reinhart uses a MacIntosh and actually had a digital story of a relative’s wedding on her computer. She has never taken the time to learn how to use I-Movie. Sarah taught her the basics of the program as Debra observed. We think Miss Reinhart might create a digital story in the future, providing she finds the time to do so. Sarah told her that she could do a story on anything she wants, such as an end of year video of her class.

This was a good opportunity for us to help our cooperating teacher learn in a more convenient way. Teachers don’t have much time to spare, so service-learning lessons are very helpful. We don’t think that Miss Reinhart had the desire to create digital stories before we taught her, and now she might find the time to do so. We think it was worth the effort, even if she doesn’t create digital stories, because at least we were able to teach her something to help her in her profession, just like she did for us.

Field Experience

What? This week i am in Miss. R's 5th grade classroom. At this school there is early start and late start. Track A comes at 8:00 then leaves at 2:15, and Track B comes at 9:15 and leaves at 3:30.

So What? This field experince means a lot to me. It is amazing to me to see a class function so well. Miss R has her class knowing exactly what to do with; transitions like when they come in the morning they know exactly what to do, lining up, raising there hands, and much more. I know that by observing Miss. R and taking notes will/has helped me when i am up teaching her class as well as when i have my own class.

Now What? With everything that i am learning from observing, teaching and helping in Miss. R's class, i know that it will help me with my future students. I will have better teaching strategies as well as better ways to dicipline. Miss R has told us that she really looks up to her colleagues, esspecially the ones in her grade. They get a long well and really help each other if ther are problems in the class as well as sharing lesson plan ideas. There is so much more that i have to learn, and i think i will learn more by being in the classroom as well as in my next few semesters at school.

Reflection 8 (field 1)

What? I have been in the classroom for three days so far. I have learned a lot about teaching and how to manage a class.

So What? This for me means a great deal. It is helping me now while preparing my lessons and it can help me in the future when i am student teaching. It will also help me so that i can answer my colleagues questions about field and how the experience was and what i learned. The technology has been good. Our teacher uses a smart board everyday and then at least once a week the kids go to specialties where they get to use their own computers.

Now What? For me this can help me a lot with my future students. I like the smart board because it works like an over-head but it is smaller there for it takes up less space. I am not a huge computer/technology person, but i will try to find different technology things to incooperate in my class as well as lessons that i will one day be teaching. I can also tell you that coming up with lesson plans can be very hard and time consuming. It has really helped to have a partner to work on them with. I am very excited to be a teacher and have wonderful colleagues so that we can work together and share ideas.