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PART IFoundation of EducationObservation/Reflection PacketName: Lacey HaskettSemester/Year: Fall 2009 Foundation Section Number: 0482Foundation Lecture Instructor: Debbie CaseObservation Site(s): Chickasha, Clinton, Thomas PART IThe observations we are required to do in Foundations of Education, help us to establish a clearer understanding of the reasons why we want to become a teacher, what grade level we would like to teach, the different styles of teaching, the diversity of the students, and so much more. It’s a very important part of the process we will go through on our journey to teaching. I am very glad that I got to experience being in the classroom with a mentor teacher. It allowed me to become familiar with the structure of a typical school day in the life of a teacher and also gave me a deeper understanding of the teaching profession. There are numerous reasons why I would like to become a teacher, reason numberone is that I care about the education our students are receiving. I know that it is very important that we teach each and every student to the best of their abilities. Not only should we teach them to the best of their abilities, but we should do our best to instill within them, a desire to learn. We want our students to strive for the best in their education, future profession, life, and in all they do. The second reason I would like to become a teacher is that it is a very rewarding profession. We know why we are teaching,and we enjoy it. In the classroom we will work to further our students’ knowledge and education, and at the end of the year, the progress will be evident. Students are going tobe able to grow and prosper in our classrooms. The third reason I would like to become a teacher is that I enjoy working with children. I enjoy the experiences and fun that teaching children entails. Teachers must be interested in the subjects they are teaching and have a deep understanding of the material. One of the most important reasons teachers need to understand their subject matter is because we will need to break it down and teach this material multiple ways. If we are unable to dissect our subject matter, we will not be able to teach diverse learners. Another reason teachers need to understand their subject matter is that is our job. It’s our job to understand what we are teaching and to convey this knowledge to our students. We can’t expect our students to learn and understand something if we aren’t willing to do the same. We need to love what we teach and understand all the different components of the material. Teachers need to have an understanding of how students learn and develop because we will encounter students in our classrooms that will learn differently. We need to be able to teach these students also. There are many different ways that students learn and teachers should not see this as a hardship. We need to be ready and familiar with different methods of teaching. All students are entitled to a fair educational experience. Teachers need to be aware of how children develop because we need to be able to pinpoint where they are in the developmental process. They may be developmentally behind and we will need to alter some of the work they will be given. They may be at a completely different developmental stage than the other students and we need to be readyto help them as well.During my observation there was a girl who had an eyesight problem and the teacher modified her worksheets. The assignment was for the student to trace letters on the sheets. To modify the sheet for the student who had eyesight problems; we enlarged the letters and traced them with a black magic marker. This allowed the girl to see the letters and be able to trace them herself. Another way she modified work was for the students with autism. She worked with these students on a one-on-one basis, along with their teaching aid. She used tactile methods, such as squishy letters, to help them learn thealphabet. One of the teachers I observed had a student with some different learning disabilities and he modified the math work by playing Uno. Instead of having the child doworksheets, we all played a game of Uno; this helped him to recognize numbers, match numbers, and follow instructions. He really got into the game of Uno and beat us all. He had a hard time focusing on worksheets and lectures and this allowed him to practice the numbers and be interested in what we were doing. .I observed a second grade teacher and she was honoring cultural diversity by doing a geography lesson titled, “Christmas around the World.” She gave all the students passports and a suitcase. First they would pick a country, then students got the country stamped in their passport and after that, the teacher explained the Christmas traditions of that particular country. I thought it was a really great way to get the students interested in learning about the rest of the world and different traditions. Another way I saw cultural diversity honored in the classrooms was by the variety in the classroom reading material. They were doing a lesson that had vocabulary words that were not familiar in the typical English language. They were learning words that I was not familiar with, but that are popular in the Spanish culture.I thought it was really great when my cooperating teacher encouraged the students to think outside the box by asking them to answer inference type questions. Theywere only second grade students but she was encouraging them to look outside the story lines and answer questions that weren’t already answered for them. This same teacher also had the students do a Venn diagram. I thought this project definitely encouraged critical thinking for the students. They had to think through the problems, label the diagram, and infer answers from the diagram. Two of three teachers I observed had Smart Boards in their classrooms. This enabled them to do so many neat demonstrations and to get the students involved in the demonstrations. They allowed the students to each come up the Smart Board and help work through problems. This kept the students interactive in the lesson. Another use of technology I saw in the classroom was books on tape. One of the teachers used the books on tape as a center and the other teacher used it for the basel classroom reader. The students enjoyed listening to the storyteller because they gave the story liveliness. One motivation technique


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SWOSU EDUC 2113 - Observation/Reflection Packet

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