Classroom Reflection Paper

In my observation of a preschool classroom consisting of twenty boys and girls (ages 4-5), the primary manner of teaching included an interactive whiteboard. The teacher chooses one student per day to help her create a calendar on Starfall, starting with the month, then the weekday, and finally the date. The other children appeared to be excited about using the board and cheered the student helper on as she successfully completed the daily calendar. If the student struggled with the board, the other children encouraged her and vocally offered help so she would understand how to do it. The students were especially helpful when the student helper was asked to choose the weather icons; it has been found that the use of technology has “been found to contribute to young children’s operational skills, knowledge, and increased understanding of the world” (Sharkins et al., 2016, p. 437).

There are many different types of attachments that I have observed in the Magnolia classroom. Some are attachments to the children’s personal belongings and others are attachments to people, such as the teachers. Growing out of these attachments is good for the children’s social-emotional development.

It is really amazing how excited students get with the possiblity of using the computer in the classroom to assist them with their lesson. The teacher added that she uses it as a reward system, stating how affective it is in maintaining order and control in the classroom. Students knew how to navigate, go to various websites that were related to the lesson and create a folder in which to put their assignments in.

As the students arrived to class, from P.E. they grabbed their math buckets and found their seats. They did this so quietly and were waiting patiently for Mrs. Beach to explain what they were doing for the day. Since Mrs. Beach needed to catch the students up on lesson 16, she decided to teach a whole group lesson; therefore, she taught and the students listened. During the lesson, I graded papers and took notes of the ways that Mrs. Beach was explaining the lesson to her students. One thing that I found interesting about the ways that Mrs. Beach was teaching this lesson was that the students were only going to be exposed to this lesson once, not their usual three times. From the number of students who were not doing well on the informal formative assessment being used by the teacher, I think it was

Once, in fifth grade, my teacher, let's just call her Ms. A, for some reason, chose me as valedictorian of my class. I honestly don't know why though. Sure I was really nice to everyone and I had “pretty good (but not perfect)” grades in most subjects but I was one of the quietest people in the class. At first, I didn't want anything to do with it because being valedictorian meant giving a huge speech in front of the principal, assistant principals, fellow fifth graders, family, and siblings in the school. I had never spoken or given a speech in front of a small class before, let alone a huge crowd! If you had put me on a stage with no rehearsal or anything, I'd either freeze or hide behind the curtains. The most I’d ever done before was some fun dance performances in the yearly concerts, a talent show that I joined that year with my friends, and Dance Club which I was chosen for some random reason. But anyway, Ms. A made me write a page long speech, which I was okay with since I like writing. Afterwards, she made me go out to the hall to read my speech to a small group of classmates. I can't remind who they were exactly but I know that one of them was my good friend, Joy. I didn't really know them all that well so the second I got outside I was super scared and made up some excuse to use the bathroom (which I did do it wasn't a complete excuse). I was taking my time washing my hands so when I finally left the bathroom, Joy was about to come in. She said something

As the class of 2018 works towards their last months of high school, those who have aspirations to attend college will spend these last few months filling out endless applications, finding schools to take the SAT or ACT, and putting the machine that high school has forced us to become on overdrive. We will look back at all the long night and countless homework assignments that overlapped our obstacles. For some, the struggles encouraged them to quit trying. For others, the struggles provoked them. For the select few, the struggles are the reason we chose to strive.

When I arrived at the classroom with my guide teacher, the supervisor was already there. I helped to keep the class in silence in order to greet the students properly, some of the girls were talking and laughing too much and I asked them to be quiet, the three of us greeted the students before starting the class.

The most important resource is children. In order to fully tap that resource and allow children to gain the knowledge needed to perform to the best of their ability, and thus become effective, contributing members of society, competent teachers are needed in classrooms across the world. I hope to become a teacher, specifically for elementary-aged children, once I finish school; however, with all of the varying teaching methods educators across the world employ, I am curious to see which approaches to expanding young minds have been the most successful. Additionally, as a teacher, I would like to provide a creative environment for students that makes learning something students want to participate in, as opposed to a chore. Furthermore, because children all interpret information in different ways, I am interested in finding teaching methods that work for a majority of children.

As kids, most of us get up every morning dreading going to school. We beg our parents to let us stay home, and on occasion, fake sick just to get out of school for a day. There are many factors that attribute to making us want to stay home from school but as a teacher, I want to provide an atmosphere where students enjoy coming to my classroom. Kids should feel like they matter and are respected when they are learning in a classroom, and from the learning experiences that I have had and will gain in ECCO, I intend to provide an atmosphere where not only can they can flourish and thrive, but they are able to influence the world around them.

Since taking this class, my mind has been opened to so many new ideas and perspectives about the society we live in, and teaching in general. I have always considered myself to be an open-minded person, and have always striven to be socially aware. I would make sure to be on date with current social events that were happening and especially during the election, I made sure to know all sides of a topic before trying to talk about it. When I had to sign up for this class last semester, I thought that it would be easy, and that we would not talk about anything I did not already know. I thought I was socially aware about everything at the time, and that I did not need to be educated anymore on the topic of multiculturalism. Well, having been in this class for half a semester I can honestly say that I have learned more in the last eight weeks than I have taught myself. I feel like I have been able to broaden my multicultural lens extensively since starting that class, and I know that it will continue to widen as the semester goes on.

In the classroom where I am doing student teaching I have observed students utilizing a science notebook only three times in the school year so far. Some schools have clusters, while other schools integrate science into their curriculum through other subject such as reading and writing. According to one teacher, the students receive science instruction through STEM, which creates more of a focus for her teaching in social studies instead of science. At my assigned school, the students receive instruction in their native language in science one day and social studies the next. Most teachers put a lot of planning into ELA and math, but not a lot of planning into the science lessons that are part of the curriculum. Part of my belief that science isn’t taught at the same level as other subjects is that teachers don’t feel confident enough when it comes to different science topics.

With all of this in mind, you as the educator are able to understand your classroom and structure it in a way that it is beneficial to all students. Most of the time in my clinical setting the students are arranged in a strict manor. They must face towards the front of the classroom at all times. Even when it is time to partner up for activities they are extremely limited on how they can form groups. When structuring my classroom, I want to create an environment that is open to discussion. To keep students from feeling left out and to keep students from simply not wanting to participate, I plan on structuring the classroom in a circle instead of rows. This gives everyone an equal chance to voice their opinion and start a discussion.

When the students are learning about science in my field placement, the teacher has a set routine or schedule that they would follow. As I am observing my classroom, I have notice that the students would go to the science lab to be introduced to the science topic that we are learning. While the students are in the science lab, they are doing experiments that are very hands on. The science lab’s teacher would also introduce the students by connecting to their prior knowledge and have them explain their thinking. Since the students are very engaging in science lab, they enjoy attending the class because they get to learn something new every week.

After the majority of the class shares a good amount of answers to the questions, Ms. Bannon notices that a lot of their answers are becoming repetitive. She decides to move on and read a story to her class. Then asked her class to turn and talk to your partner to come up with the main idea in one sentence. Ms. Bannon walked around to groups to join their conversation using scaffolding questions to redirect some students who were not grasping the concept. After discussing each group's ideas as a class, they get into their reading groups. In their groups, they must read the story provided and come up with the main idea in one sentence. After all groups finished, Ms. Bannon brought the class together and went over each

Walking into the first two weeks of the EDU program I desired to experience what it would be like to be a future educator and have a grasp of how to help the molding of our youth and giving them the possibility to become future leaders. Doctor dresser was able to bring in a Concordia alumni who had just begun to experience his professional education, career and is teaching multiple different grade levels as a young teacher. When he first walked into the classroom my first impressions were that unfortunately he looked very inexperienced and unsure of what was to be expected of the lecture I thought to myself in the position of a younger student in his classroom this is a person I would not take seriously. He then proceeded to communicate