Lauren Mullen Dr.

Carr EDUC 304 19 September 2013 Field Experience Reflection 1 Category Gender Explanation There are 18 students in my CTs classroom including 9 girls and 9 boys. Ethnicity All 18 students are Caucasian. TDT One female student qualifies for TDT services and is monitored by a TDT specialist throughout the day, leaving the class when services are necessary. SPED Three students qualify for special education services. One female student has an IEP for a Learning Disability and is served by the special education teacher for Reading. One male student has an IEP for Autism and is served by the special education teacher for Reading and at different times throughout the day for one-to-one instruction in any/all areas. One female student has an IEP also for Autism, but stays in the classroom with an aide during all subjects. Gifted Six students qualify for the gifted program, Challenge. Learning Styles Through my observation, I can recognize all learning styles ( visual, auditory, kinesthetic) represented in this class room. I have seen three different lessons that incorporated these learning styles and I can tell which students benefitted the most from each through observing my CTs formative assessments throughout the lesson. Any given classroom contains students that pose challenges, and I can definitely foresee some challenges with the students in my CTs classroom. I anticipate that the female student that requires TDT will be the most challenging. Through my very limited observation I can see that she can be very attention-seeking at times and this can sometimes lead to outbursts that are disruptive to the classroom. Throughout this fall I plan to learn as much as I can from the TDT specialist and my CT about how to cope with students like this in my classroom. I also anticipate the students with Autism to be challenging, simply because I lack experience working with Autistic children. Before the spring I will make a point to go to the SPED educators and visit their room and become as familiar about how they are helping these students as I can.

I see far more benefits than challenges in this classroom. The first benefit is the small class size. I cannot stress how shocking it was to walk in my CTs classroom and see only twenty deskswith two of them empty. I also noticed that the group is incredibly helpful to one another. I observed the whole first day of school and I witnessed each and every student help out in some fashion. It was almost eerie that these students were so eager and happy to be around each other and back in school. When I went back to visit a week later the honeymoon phase had somewhat worn off, but the students were still extremely kind and helpful to one another and myself. Although I have not had enough observation hours to come to this conclusion myself, my CT has told me that all of her students are roughly on the same level academically. All students (including those that leave the room for IEP reasons) are at grade level or above for reading, and she has grouped them into two groupsone above reading level and one at reading level. Even in her departmentalized groups (which are grouped together based on math ability) most of her class stays together. My CT is extremely organized and expects her students to be as organized as she is. She is laid back with her students and can interact with them in a casual manner outside of direct instruction, but when she is up there at the board teaching something she demands her students respect and attention. Her teaching style is definitely rooted in Progressivism. She teaches science to the entire 5th grade, and she believes in active and cooperative learning. She teaches science through experimentation and exploration. I believe that my CT is fortunate to have the class that she has because her students represent various learning styles and most of her lessons address each type of learner in an appropriate balance. She is lucky to have a class that is more uniform in academic ability. They all comprehend the information at about the same rate and

have the same skill level, allowing her to cover information at a relatively quick pace without doing much reteaching. My teaching style is also rooted in Progressivism, but I see the benefits of Essentialism as well. I have a difficult time accepting cooperative learning and exploratory learning with some concepts that I anticipate will be challenging for students. I just dont know if I can handle the hard stuff being out of my hands; sometimes I think that learning should not be the responsibility of the student, and that it is 100% my job. This is not true, of course. There is so much research that supports students taking responsibility for their own learning that it is foolish I could even think this way at all. The Worcester Polytechnic Institute states that students achieve at higher levels because of the selfreliant, self-directed nature of their learning , are more motivated to learn, and are more efficient in their learning, and better understand their strengths and weaknesses as learners, enabling them to leverage their strengths in learning situations. As the Student Teacher I will need to learn to trust this research as well as my CT and let my students learn progressively. I should teach them to explore to learn and work cooperatively, and trust that they are capable enough to learn the material independently.

References Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.wpi.edu/academics/ATC/Collaboratory/Idea/responsibility.html