More on the fieldwork experience

Overall, I enjoyed the fieldwork experience. I believe that my group did a fantastic job. It was a lot of work! Hours and hours were spent preparing the lessons and PowerPoint presentations. I wish that we had more time to prepare and rehearse our lessons. We had ample time to plan and rehearse out direct instruction lesson, but no so much with our final two lessons. We had a difficult time meeting up to plan our inquiry and cooperative learning lessons. Our schedules were overlapping and other work was often getting in the way. In the end, we were able to create lessons that I believe the students enjoyed.

Our response paddles were a huge hit! The students enjoyed using them and the teacher loved them so much that our class purchased white board paddles for the teacher as a thank you gift for having us in her classroom. I hope they get good use out of them and that the teacher and students enjoy them. Response paddles are a great was for teachers to assess students, while having students be engaged and participating. After seeing how well the students took to this, I plan to use this as a method of assessment when I have my own classroom one day.

I am sad that fieldwork is over. Although it was a lot of preparation and work to teach the fifth graders, I will miss being in the classroom. I enjoy getting to know the students and seeing them engaged in learning. I am grateful for the experience and it will always have this memory of my first time teaching a class, even if it was with a group.