High School Field Experience

My first semester as a college freshman is finally coming to an end. This semester has been the start to a new chapter in my life and I am glad to have finally finished my first semester on a high note. Coming into college I never knew what things would be like and how would I adjust. All I knew is that I wanted to succeed and eventually graduate college. The courses I have taken this semester have had big impact on my learning and my future. Assignments that taught skills and lessons to be used in the future. I have learned skills such as being able to collaborate in groups because of projects in ASU 150.

I have conducted my field of experience at Westside Elementary School, second and third grade classroom. The third grade class consists of 20 students. The teacher does not have any aide even though she needs some assistance, because two of her students are falling behind. The sad part about this is that the students have not being diagnosed yet, but they are having a lot of difficulties. The teacher mentioned that by fourth or fifth grade those two students will need to be placed in a special education classroom. The students both have a concentration problem and it causes them to struggle with reading, writing, math, listening, and speaking. The teacher asked me to

I learned so much about myself and became more confident in who I am. I learned that I am not good at accounting or finance and that you will probably never see me walking down Wall Street. This semester I learned that I have a new passion for health and wellness. I love learning about nutrition and how to fuel your body properly. My business classes taught me how to get out of my comfort zone and be able to present in front of a large number of people. I learned so much about myself that I would not have learned if I did not come to a liberal arts

I feel like I've learned a lot of thing from this class that I probably would have never thought about before. Firstly, I learned how community colleges work and about some of the policies they go by. I also learned about a lot of different career options that I never explored before. I think this really helped to open my eyes to all the options so I'm not limiting myself. Lastly, and most importantly, I learned about ways of managing stress and my time. This is something I have always struggled with and now I feel like I have the tools to change. I think this will really improve many things in all areas in my life but especially school. It was really great to hear everyone's dreams and goals as well as their stresses. It just shows that

I am new to the profession of education, but where I lack in experience I make up for it when it comes to my enthusiasm and willingness to learn more. My first field experience was at Milton Union high school, and it was also the most scared I’ve ever been in the classroom. However, when I went to Stivers School for the Arts things got even better—I felt more prepared. This year I’m back at Stivers and so far everything has been good, and I really enjoy working with my cooperating teacher. This year will be a test of my endurance and capabilities. I am up to the challenge to work with students who are linguistically diverse, even though I know it might be difficult at times. Studying Spanish for six years half in high school and college have given me an idea of how disorienting it is to not understand the language. Not only is it disorienting it is also very challenging, because languages are all unique in vocabulary and grammar structure. These experiences will become of aid to me when I’m working with ESL students in the classroom.

As soon as I enter the classroom on the first day the teacher explained to me that things were being ran different this day because they were having visitors that Friday. She had to change her entire lesson plan around and revise it at the last minute. The visitors where people from the school system who were coming to observe how she runs her class. It was very different for the children they kind of was loud and off task. Mrs.Delk had to keep reminding them that she understands that they’re aren’t used to that schedule but it’s what they had to do. I hear all the time in my education classes that sometimes you might have to make changes to the plans you made previously and your lesson plans can’t be set in stone. She demonstrated this so well for me. I

By my second year, I joined the OLÉ! Team to help coordinate Orientation Weekend. While the Team was preparing materials, we began talking about our first year experiences. I opened up about my personal difficulties, and I learned that many others also struggled to adjust. I was inspired to become a Scholastic Assistant for next year’s Orientation Weekend so that I could serve as a peer mentor to guide first year students through their transition. Helping foster a positive educational and developmental experience, I spent countless weekends throughout my third year supporting others and being a friend to those like the lonely, homesick freshman I once was. I discovered a passion for working with others towards a common goal and connecting with incoming

Winter break approached, and I attended my first CPS mandated S.M.A.R.T class. This was a program aimed towards putting troubled teens back on the right path. There I met many people whose lives were much harder than mine and had done much worse things than I had, but we all had similar goals in mind; to get something out of the class. From my interactions with my peers and the help of the instructors, it was made clear what I needed to focus on in

Our class was great when we first began. We worked together and accomplished many things

My field experience this semester had a genuine impact on my outlook on teaching. It was very beneficial to be able to get a hands-on experience in a classroom, and to take the concepts I was being taught and apply them. The involvement I had in a first-grade classroom affected myself in an emotional and professional way. I could relate topics from class to my observations, and this provided me with a better understanding of motivation, praise, feedback, direct instruction, and literacy development.

As the semester began, things began to get quite serious. The school that I thought was good enough was not. I was coming from a graduating class of one hundred students and felt very overwhelmed in a school of fifty thousand students. The core class sizes were about 250-300 students. It was very difficult to get to know your professors as well as to find academic support. Not to mention the location of the campus where 50% of the population were students. Coming from a big city, it was hard to adjust to a small town, in the middle of nowhere and with completely new people. It felt as if I was trapped in a bubble, with nowhere to go.

I really enjoyed the two speakers that we had in class this past Wednesday. Katie and Shane both had such unique experiences and were both very open to talking about their lives. I remember Shane coming to talk with our SPED 201 class and how much I took away from that experience. This past week was no exception, I left with so many ideas that I would never have thought of as a future Special Education teacher.

Socializing at a football game; dancing at prom; maintaining a 4.0 GPA; earning college scholarships; and achieving valedictorian. These are all things I want to achieve in my highschool years because I understand the memories and experiences teenagers gain from high school can be life changing. With knowing this, I spend everyday working towards my goals and enjoying my high school experiences while they last. This is because I dedicate my time to school and enjoying social experiences rather than pursuing a stressful and time consuming part-time job. 62% of students that have a part-time job, experience stress and loss of time for schoolwork and social experiences, causing them to fail classes and never achieve their goals. Some things a teenager experiences in high school may even form the basis for a teenager’s future values and character. As precious as our teenage years may be, most teenagers are spending their time and freedom with unnecessary and stressful part-time work.

One of the hardships I have endured in the fall of 2015 was balancing between school work and be involved on campus. I joined the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA) at the beginning of the semester and was chosen to be a treasurer chair. As a chair, I have to meet up with the officers regularly to talk about meetings and responsibilities for certain events. Sometimes, I had to go pick up food for the meetings and stayed after every meetings to help the officers clean up. I contributed to ALPFA around three to four hours per week. At the same time, I took my first Intro to Accounting class last semester; it was not easy. Before selected this class, I already know it will be hard and required a lot of time for practice. I went to tutors twice a week, visited my professor after every exam to talk about the questions I missed, and spent around 10 hours each week working practice

In my resent field work observation, I was given the opportunity to observe two classroom settings at two local high schools. Both of the schools that I had the opportunity in observing are both continuation high schools. A continuation high school was originally designed to provide a flexible schedule for working students, Continuation high schools now primarily serve as an important drop out prevention strategy and assist students who are deficient in the academic credits required for their grade levels (Velasco et al., 2008).The schools that I had the chance to visit was Pioneer High School and Freedom High School. Both have students who are not able to make it socially, mentally, behaviorally, or academically at a traditional high school. Each school has its own very unique culture and is something that is implemented by the school staff. Their efforts help to create a specific dynamic and feel within the school.