Blog (last week of field)

Service Learning Project

Archer Birrell, Merissa Jones

A.
Legacy Elementary, American Fork UT.
32 students
Mrs. Walker

B.
We have a very good relationship with our cooperating teacher. Our teacher recently graduated from UVU and was in her third year of teaching. Her name was Kayla Walker and she was friendly. We felt like we were working with a member of our cohort when we worked with Kayla. What we really enjoyed was how she gave feedback in every lesson. Her feedback was based off of her experiences and what she would have wanted to know as a student teacher. We had many opportunities to discuss teaching, politics, philosophy, education and our personal life experiences. We made a friend with Kayla, as she is also our professional colleague.

C.
Mrs. Walker thought our video was very creative and entertaining. She praised us for using technology and told us how wonderful technology is to the students. Mrs. Walker encouraged us to continue to create videos and to bring in technology however we could in our lessons during field. I appreciated how she said our technology fit right into her lessons of Ancient Civilizations. The only feedback she gave us of the video was to stop the video if the students were ever talking.

D.
Mrs. Walker also loved the lesson that was done with the video. The video was perfect to introduce the Rosetta Stone lesson. She complimented the lesson by stating that it was well prepared and very organized. I appreciated how she loved how the lesson was broken into a jigsaw so all students had participation. My teacher also liked the evaluation after the lesson so the students could have a formal assessment. The lesson was also praised for its variety in development. The lesson had drama, jigsaw methods, group and individual work with extrinsic rewards.

E.
Merissa and I experienced problems with our cooperating teacher the first day we got to school. Our original field teacher became very ill and we were transferred to another classroom. Our new teacher Kayla Walker had just recently graduated from the UVU elementary education program. Our original plan was to spend some time with our teacher who had been in the field for a while, teaching windows media maker. We talked to Kayla about this and decided that she already was advanced enough to not need us to teach her.

F.
We really enjoyed the learning experience because it gave me an opportunity to put myself in the field and experience the classroom. We really appreciated the chance to be a teacher and see how a teacher runs the classroom. I (Archer) knew after field that I had chosen the best career for me and I am very excited to become a teacher soon.

G.
Mrs. Walker absolutely loved our help with the classroom. She complimented us very often on how easy we made her life. Kayla reminded us often that there needs to be more than one teacher in a classroom to give the students personalized attention. I believe our education system would thrive with two teachers teaching full time. I know Mrs. Walker appreciated the large amount of help we gave her.

H.
We gained a lot of personal experience from field. We appreciated the opportunity to see the classroom experience from the teachers perspective and we gained a lot of knowledge on classroom management. We came to learn that half of classroom management was simply having a teaching in the classroom. Mrs. Walker gave great feedback on how to be a successful teacher.

I.
The experience was well worth our time. I (Archer) feel that I learned more in the field experience about teaching than I have in the time I have been at school preparing. Real world experience can’t compare to books and teaching. We highly valued this experience as a great preparation tool. I would highly suggest it keeps going through the program as it taught us more than we could describe.