Effective teachers know the importance of having a caring, inclusive educational environment, creating routines, modeling every aspect of learning, and providing rich hands-on experiences. On November 3, 2017, I conducted my field experience and observation, in my friend, Brittney Gomez’s kindergarten class. Mrs. Gomez has a great passion for education, and truly cares for all of her students. I have contemplated teaching kindergarten, so I felt observing a kindergarten classroom would be an excellent opportunity for me. Mrs. Gomez seems to teach her kindergarten class with ease, and I am very thankful for the opportunity I had to observe her class. At the start of the day Mrs. Gomez warmly greets all of her students as they enter the classroom. Each student has their own cubby labeled with their name and picture. …show more content…
Gomez read I Took a Walk by Henry Cole to her class. After the class read and talked about the story, Mrs. Gomez took the class on their own nature walk. During the walk each student had a clipboard, and a check list of pictures, so they could mark off different things they saw, smelled, and felt. The class was so excited to get to go outside, and have their own experience with nature. While the student where on the walk Mrs. Gomez pointed out different thing she wanted the students to notice, and often mentioned the book I Took a Walk. Reading the book and then giving the students an opportunity to have their own hand on experience that related to what they read, helped them all be excited about the story and make connections to the book. When the class finished their walk they came inside, and wrote about their walk on a worksheet. As the kids completed their writing activity I was able to walk around the classroom, and assist students that needed help. This was such an awesome activity to experience with Mrs. Gomez’s class because I observed how to connect a reading and a science lesson into one fun experience for
Over the years, I feel I have been guided by God to pursue Elementary Education, which narrows my focus to the kindergarten classroom. I will clearly define the most helpful theories that may be implemented throughout the kindergarten learning environment. Effective teacher characteristics will be identified and why they are imperative for this particular age group. Young children have different learning characteristics and it is important for teachers to recognize and accommodate to the needs of their students. Throughout this course, I have discovered certain characteristics about myself and I will elaborate on my unique learning styles.
In a good classroom, students should feel safe and comfortable. The classroom was staffed with Ms. Caitlin the kindergarten teacher and Mrs. Doherty the teacher's assistant. The class size consisted of twenty children. The classroom held five round tables with four students per table. Having tables rather than individual desks, Ms. Caitlin encouraged a sense of community rather than allowing a child to be alone at a desk. The furniture was at an appropriate level and size for 5 and 6-year-old children. Also, there was space for children to store their work and personal belongings in cubbies. The class had four different learning center stations these included: writing/reading center, block center, math center, and the kitchen center. Bulletin boards were displayed and decorated with colorful pictures which reinforced concepts learned in the classroom. For example, the alphabet, numbers and days of the week. Student work was also visible in the classroom. In the front of the classroom, a smartboard and rug was arranged for the students to gather for lessons and play. This area was kept free from all forms of distraction. In the back of the room, extra materials were available such as pencils, erasers, crayons, glue sticks, and scissors. Overall, I believe that Ms. Caitlin provided her students with a positive, cheerful, and organized learning environment. She instilled in her students that the classroom is a
Taylor is also a second grade teacher who teaches Science and English/Language Arts. Her classroom is a regular education classroom. Mrs. Taylor is a graduate of the University of Georgia where earned her Bachelor’s degree. She then went on to the Nova Southeastern University where she earned her Master’s degree. Mrs. Taylor recently received an Education Specialist Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Piedmont College in May of 2015. I found it very interesting that Mrs. Taylor did her student teaching over in Auckland, New Zealand. Mrs. Taylor has been teaching for 6 years. She has taught Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten and Second Grade. The primary reason Mrs. Taylor became a teacher was due to the influence of both of her parents. Mrs. Taylor came from a family of educators and has always loved pretending to be a teacher since she was a little girl. Mrs. Taylor admits that the main challenge she faces is finding a healthy balance between work, and home. The best part of being a teacher is the reward she receives every day, and the feeling of accomplishment after each school day. While, teaching is full of surprises the biggest of all is the hours you work each week to be successful in meeting all the student’s needs. Mrs. Taylor admits that she is constantly changing her seating arrangement in the classroom. She said that she determines their seat mainly on
The reading of the life of Sally Ride appeared as a very engaging activity to me. While reading, Ms. House would allow simple questions and comments, but knew when to stop them and move on. Her students also seemed to know that when she moved on it was time to be quiet and listen. After reading, the students turned to a partner and discussed the story. This was a great way
The teacher passed around a microphone to each child, it symbolized who was speaking and this made everyone special. The students then had to write two sentences and draw a picture of what they remembered best about their holiday break. Eventually, they shared their two sentences with the teacher or me. Second, I noticed that once everyone read their journals, the teacher quickly called on students based on their bin color, which meant it was time for reading to begin. Each student had their own colored reading bin which included: three reading level books, a word list of the week, and a worksheet using the given word list. The colored bins symbolized what the student was to complete during reading time. For example; students with yellow bins read with the teacher at a table, students with green bins worked on the worksheet, students with blue bins read the three books quietly, and students with pink bins worked on writing on a small whiteboard the word list for the week. This strategy was beneficial because it developed independence. Thirdly, I noticed enthusiasm during the math lesson at the end of the day. The teacher had the students sit on the purple rug for a math lesson. The teacher used her laptop and the video clip to provide the students with visual instruction. Once the video clip was over, the teacher pulled up the worksheet to preview together with the class. Then the students went back to their desk to work on the worksheet
This week I did both an interview and a small observation of my third grade host teacher's classroom. I was first able to interview my host teacher. Miss A does use many of the techniques for teaching words that were listed on my observation form. Specifically she uses crossword puzzles, dramatizing, word sorts, possible sentences and dictionaries. She also uses many techniques that are not listed on the observation sheet as well. She does a lot of repetition with her students. She has them right there words in rainbow colors, in vowels and consonants colors, in alphabetical order and many more that I didn't see. Miss a believes that " they are all useful for different students. Some students feel like crosswords are helpful and others feel like pictures are helpful" () I would completely agree with her statement in this regard. I do think it's good to have many different options for the many different students you have in your class. Miss a believed that there were a lot of benefits to wide reading. She make sure that the children are provided with a variety of texts especially her students who are ELL students. She mention specifically that it "helps build their schema for Content areas such as social studies and science and the vocabulary that goes with that."()
On Thursday, November 3, 2016, at approximately 10:51AM, I, Officer Larry Thomas was dispatched to Hooper, right at the bus stop, in reference to two males fighting.
This classroom was very organized and it did have a lot of things labeled. I recognized that the teacher had a lot of things in her classroom labeled. She had words like door on the door in the classroom. She used a lot of bright colors. I also recognized that the teacher did a lot of one-on-one with her students. For example, she did very small group activities and a lot of the activities consist of one-on-one activities. She allowed the children to experiment with the project. She stated that she like to have children to participate in morning discussion. This time allows her to introduce the new letter of the week. She believes that children learn a lot of literacy through song and dancing. The children would sing the songs as they played in the classroom. Some of them would dance to music.
The classroom observed for this assignment was a 4/5 year old (pre-kindergarten/kindergarten) room in a local day care. After researching the correlation between play, development, and diversity, many realizations came to light. First, there are different stages of play and they all correlate with the developmental stages. Then, diversity is found in every classroom, either positively or negatively effecting the room. Educators who are flexible with change and comprehends the levels of development for children are expected to create a positive and effective learning environment filled with play-based activities. Below show three scenarios of classrooms from infants, toddlers, and preschool/kindergarten room.
I observed at a daycare called Children's house, I have observed here before and I know the teachers very well. I interviewed a teacher that was formally called Ms. A now called Ms. C who has been working there for 10 years. The Children's house is a private, suburban daycare with 20 children. The room that I observed in is a 3 to 5 year old room. Ms. C had a lot of 3 and 4 year olds. 7 of her children are 3 year olds, 11 are 4 and only 2 are 5 year olds. in her classroom she has 4 children with speech problems and 1 child with a development delay. She has an aid named Ms. M who works with her during the day. Ms. C tries to make their jobs equal, Ms. C teaches lessons and Ms. M teaches other lessons. While they are at center time they have one teacher work on a activity and the other teacher will drift around and insure that the children are behaving well and are out of harm's way.
My first observation was completed by my school professor. Going into the lesson, I really was not sure what she would be looking for when observing me. I felt this was a good thing because not knowing, I just taught the way I usually do and as nervous as I was, overall I was pleased with my performance and evaluated effectiveness as a teacher.
The children I have observed were adolescents and were going through the beginning stages of puberty. I used my knowledge about concrete operations to observe the students rational thinking and logical thought. For example a student was given a task to do their assign class work without any socializing with his peers. The student who I was observing, noticed his peers were talking during the assignment. He took the decision upon himself to look around the classroom and began to socialize with his peers. This particular student made his decision by using his rational/ logical which was influenced by his peers. He knew the assignment involved not socialize with his peers but he saw the others were talking around him, he then began to do the same.
During the experiment of boys, I observed three men in the 20s who were talking about homework last weekend. During this experiment, A was on his computer talking about finances. B and C were locked into their computers without looking at A. The connection between the men seemed disengaged, as the DVD described. Most of what Deborah Tannan found is that the boys would sit at an angle. However, the participants had a couch, sitting besides each other. When they watch a movie, they would still talk and listen to each other, but would look at each other rarely at times. It lasted for a few minutes because they went to go eat together. In summary, they talked about sports and compared their teams over each other.
Conducting classroom observations are very important to the prospective teacher. Observing helps show how experienced teachers manage their classroom. For this observation it was important to notice how the classroom was arranged, how the teacher interacted with the students, the teacher’s management style, and interview the teacher.
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.