Fieldwork Reflection Log

Date of Observation:
Time in:
Time out:
Name of teacher/program observed/ working with: Long Beach Blast
General topic or lesson observed/ taught: Mostly English but I often ask him about his
other classes
Observations
Guiding ?s: What did you notice/do in
relation to language and literacy in the
classroom/ observation setting/ tutoring
experience?
He mentioned that in his English class that
he sometimes feels limited in book choices

He also mentioned that some teachers

make them review the entire story. Wants
shorter reviews.

Reflections
Guiding ?s: What do you think about what
you observed/ did? How does it relate to
what weve learned in class?
He had said before that while he gets good
grades on his English classes, it is one of
the subjects he dislikes the most. Given
that situation, it would be really beneficial
for the student to have more options on
books he or she wants to read. Since he
likes science, by reading science books he
could be more motivated to read more
books, or even harder texts. He could even
use prior knowledge since he loves science,
and therefore, probably has a bigger
knowledge of the subject, which would
make it more accessible to him to probably
pick harder texts.
While it is good that they review the
stories, it is a bad idea to review the entire
story. Students can only handle so much
information, so it is imperative that they
learn how to summarize and pick out the
important parts of the story. Given that he
does not like English that much, making
him read the story, and going it over in a
very lengthy fashion will just decrease his
attention span. Learning to summarize or
identify key texts will help him maximize
his attention span because he is challenging
himself to obtain information in a more
efficient way, instead of remembering
every boring detail that he already is not
fond of. It will also increase motivation
because it shortens the book for him; if
they can summarize a book effectively,
reading a 69 page book becomes easier and
less taxing because they could space out

their attention on the more important parts

of the book.
He had to get used to essays

It just reminds me of the first weeks in

class where everyone agreed that they had
to go through a learning period of how to
write again because the standards set up by
the school or university were higher than
they were taught. Considering I was not
really taught to write a lot of essays around
the age of my student, I think it is good that
he has to write essays this early. The earlier
the students have to write essays the better
since it is inevitable especially in the
college or work level.

For his history class, they have to draw 3

pictures and then describe them. For
example, there should be a picture each for
Before the event, Current event, and
After that event sections. They then have
to describe those events and find its
importance.

For the younger level, I think it is great

considering they are young and active, so
making them draw would be nice. Also,
some of them like art, like the one I
tutored, so its already engaging students
when they have to write about events.
Some would also benefit because it is
visual, so students can reinforce historical
events or facts with imagery. It can even be
used as mnemonics if they have to simplify
an event with a single image. By having
three sections, it does fit with the historical
narrative since it is important to have the
past, present, and future of historical
events. If they can back up their literacy
with imagery, I think it simple backs up
their knowledge of the literature.

For history, they focus on themes for every

unit. For example, for a unit, they will
focus on its location, place, region,
movement, and human-environment
interaction of each world regions or
civilizations.

Since they focus on civilizations, I think it

is great. Summarizing text is important so
by frequently emphasizing themes students
can already figure out what to read, and
expect, from the ensuing units. It avoids
clutter as students can focus in on the
important themes and then later work on
finding any useful or relevant information.
It also helps them find the so what?
because for this instance, students need to
know the importance of civilization

building, so by focusing on the themes on

different regions, they can tie the different
texts of the different world regions into one
cohesive argument (in this case, the themes
can dictate how the civilization developed,
evolved, and eventually crumble.)
Booklet about a historical figure; draw
what we still use from his time, write
paragraphs about them, and do a mosaic
picture. They should add in table of
contents, title page, etc.

I do like making a booklet about an

important history figure or a time period
because it is rather creative and makes the
students summarize the information in a
way they like but also in a format that the
teacher wants. It makes it more engaging
since students are tasked with creating a
booklet so they might be more invested to
making their item a product of their
creation but also makes them be more
aware of how books work since they need
to add in table of contents, and must think
about making cohesive and organized
format of the book. If they are more
knowledgeable about how a book would
look like, then that should make it easier
for them to know what the parts of a book
are, like glossary, index, etc. which are
very useful tools to use (although they do
not have to do those since they are young,
it would be interesting to add these
components if used for older students.) It
also makes them be more aware how texts
are organized since they have to properly
organize one.

PALS

I do like the idea that both work together to

summarize each paragraphs because it is
not only a practice in summarizing texts
but a practice in collaboration and making
sure that they know the texts by ensuring
that they are not missing out on any
important information. I can see why this
was meant for high school students because
middle school students read much slower,
and when combined with the frequent
interventions that PALS brings, it makes
reading that much more sluggish. However
I can see some modifications for it in the

higher level because certain texts require

more analysis than summaries so texts that
are deep but very slow paced might need
less emphasis on summarization because it
could be rather redundant and puts less
time on analyzing those dense passages.
Health class- give notes, copy them

Pretty atrocious way of giving students

vocabulary words. Unless she drills them
on those notes, it is rather weak because it
is hardly engaging and students are more
focused on copying the notes instead of
learning the notes. With younger students
having less attention spans they will get
bored of the class real quick so they might
end up in auto-pilot while doing the notes.
They will also forget those vocabulary
words quickly so they will have to heavily
rely on reviewing the information next
time. For ELL students they do not get any
reinforcement or self-assessment so they
are at risk of not knowing what the words
mean because they cannot gauge their
knowledge of the new words given to
them.

Health class- this time, they do vocabulary

by drawing picture and finding the
definitions...but my student says she never
brings them up again after that activity.

Similar to what is done in his history class,

he has to draw a picture of the vocabulary
words. Visuals and health class go hand in
hand sometimes especially when they deal
with the human body. Since visuals help
align the human parts to the vocabulary it
is a good idea. However unlike in the
history class where the teacher reviews the
chapter or unit with interesting ideas like
doing a booklet or drawing pictures with
descriptions, he learns parts of the lessons
directly by doing the vocabulary with no
direct reinforcement. It also somewhat
makes the vocabulary words less important
since the teacher does not emphasize on the
unit so students can afford to skimp on the
information given. This also puts a strain
on ELL learners since they have no reliable
way to prove they learned the vocabulary
words.

English class- for vocabulary, they receive

the definition already. Teacher provides fill
in the blank sentences, and students much
use the vocabulary given to fill them out.

Not great, nor horrible way of learning

about the vocabulary. At least it acclimates
them to probable test-taking scenarios
where they have to do these kinds of
things. But it limits them because the
sentence is already provided by the teacher
so students cannot use their own
knowledge to use the word they see fit.
That also makes it less engaging since they
cannot make their own sentences. Another
problem is that it gives them a false sense
of confidence about the words because they
underestimate how it can be difficult to
create entirely new sentences built around
new words because they assume they can
just plug in any new word and then they
can magically create a sentence about that.
It is harder than it looks.