Week 2: Beginning Field Experience

Today was our first day of field experience and I already learned so much from my CT and the classroom. The students started the day with a substitute teacher and towards the afternoon their regular teacher came back from a meeting. During the first half, some classroom management skills I was hoping to see were not displayed. The class was working on worksheets for a majority of the time that the teacher was gone. The directions were not being explained and the students did not get a model of what was expected of them. This made the class act out more because the students were conversing with their peers and not focusing on completing their assignment. When the CT arrived, the students knew that they were expected to behave. They had some trouble getting back into their scheduled routine, but when they started their math block the CT directed their attention into the lesson. During the lesson the students were not acting out and they were interested in the manipulatives they had in front of them. I believe this was a good change of instruction since they had been only doing worksheets for the beginning of the day. The students were working with adding and subtracting base 10 blocks. I believe I learned a lot about classroom management and flexible schedules during my first day at field experience. As I was getting familiar with the classroom I noticed the teacher had a board displaying their math objectives, goals, and standards that they had to achieve by the end of the year. Attached is a picture of that board in the classroom.