D.J.

Oberdorf
EDML 324

Field Experience Journal Reflection

Cooperating teacher: Mrs. Angela Mitchell (7th grade mathematics) at DuBois Middle School
March 30, 2015
Day one of my field experience was a laid back, observant kind of day. I was
experiencing learning in a seventh grade math class. I asked a lot of questions and got familiar
with the environment. I was very practical and experiential with my observations. Each class
period had a bell ringer to start. Classes consisted of accelerated and basic math. My cooperating
teacher is very respectful and generous. Her teaching style is very fun and students interact well.
It actually motivates myself sometimes. However, her classroom management is questionable to
me because she seems too fun-loving most of the time. There were periods where I felt nothing
was being accomplished. Students get to move around though and they have fun while learning.
Her methods for engaging student intellection are creative. She had a nifty strategy to easily
remembering how to divide. Each period starts out with a bell ringer (usually review). There is a
lot of group work, mainly because instead of desks there are tables for students to sit at together.
The class as a whole usually talks about the main information and concepts as they work through
the lesson. The teacher uses the hands up method for the students to quiet down. I also noticed
that the teacher isnt perfect and thats okay. She makes mistakes and the students most of the
time can correct her. Students are sometimes better at mental math than her.

March 31, 2015

Day two I started to help out with students homework. I helped them correct their
mistakes and in a sense taught them what they were doing wrong and how to make it right
without giving away the answers. The kids interacted well with each other and myself. They
were very respectful and willing to learn. They were mostly doing Common Core Coach Book
practice problems, but they did get to play trash-ket-ball. It is a fun game where
competitiveness for a reward makes students learn. They want to get the questions right and
make a basket so that their team is always winning and collecting the prize at the end. Bonus
points were also an incentive to come and get help on their homework. Students will come into
their academic enrichment, or study hall, and get help on homework so that they have an
understanding on what they are doing (They also get rewarded for this).

April 1st and 2nd, 2015

Today and yesterday I observed two other math teachers in the school district, one eighth
grade and one seventh grade. I got a feel for the different levels of experience an eighth grader
has compared to a seventh grader. I am in a stage now where I am seeing how these teachers
operate so that I can assimilate and operate in a cooperative fashion myself. To round out the
week, I continued to help out with homework and grade papers. Most of all, I progressed as a
professional and experienced many things that make me more comfortable as a future educator
with a classroom of my own someday.

April 7-10, 2015

To start the second week, my cooperating teacher introduced me to Class Dojo. Class
Dojo is a site that allows for teachers to take attendance and keep track of student behavior.
There is also an app for mobile devices. Class Dojo keeps teachers very organized and it
seemed to be pretty universal throughout the DuBois Middle School. The students continued to
play a lot of trash-ket-ball, reviewing fractions, decimals, and percents. I helped facilitate the
games. I noticed that student involvement is a HUGE part of learning. Any classroom I have ever
been in has been about student involvement. Our cooperating teacher does a great job of making
sure her students are engaged. These students actually love to learn when they are ENGAGED!
Students also continued to work on their Study Island PSSA practice tests. I helped them with
any questions they were stuck on and some actually understood the content better when I helped
them! Students this time of year are working hard in the Common Core Coach books to get them
prepared for the PSSAs.
I noticed that my cooperating teacher likes to put emphasis on two characteristics that she
hopes to see come from her students: respect and generosity. Students respect the teacher and
learning aids that help out as well. I had PSSA testing training on the last day of this week and
they mainly talked about the confidentiality of the PSSAs. I didnt realize how much behind-thescenes work was done! I had a substitute teacher come in for the last day this week and I was
required to help out a lot more. The students responded better to me than they did to the
substitute! To me, that is crazy. Its all about how comfortable the students are with you. When
they trust you, they can learn from you. I also got to observe a 6th grade math teacher who I
believe has the ideal job. Not much technology has been present through my couple weeks here.
Students have worked with laptops and Smart Boards, but that is about it.

April 13-16, 2015

This week I was a runner for the PSSAs since they have begun now. My job every
morning was to sit in the main office and escort students around the building. After the PSSAs
were over, I would report back to my cooperating teachers classroom. Students were continuing
to review in the Common Core Coach Books for math considering the math PSSAs are next
week. My block partner and I will be planning for our lesson that we will teach next week. MY
only fear is that our lesson is during PSSAs. Students might not be as interested to learn. We will
have to make the lesson engaging and fun. That is a must! I also observed a seventh grade
science class this week. I can now create my observation write-ups which will be attached at the
end. Overall, I got a feel for the atmosphere of the work environment. I usually spend the
morning running for the PSSAs and talking to the secretaries of the school district. I also see the
principal and assistant principal on a daily basis so its always in my best interest to make a good
impression with positive body language. I almost feel like a regular in this school district and
Ive only been here for three weeks! One more week and itll be all over. Time for some lesson
planning and teaching!

April 20-24, 2015

The last week of this field experience has been great. PSSAs are just finishing up and the
students and teachers are relieved. My block partner and I taught our lesson this week and it went
well (My reflection of the lesson is at the end of this journal.). I had a great time at this school
district and I could see myself teaching in an environment similar to this. The students were
awesome, the teachers were great, and so was the rest of the faculty. The preparation of the

lesson wasnt all that difficult because we knew what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do
it. This field experience has been a good one. Looking forward to the next one.

Observation Write-Ups
My observation of a seventh grade science teacher was interesting to say the least. The
class started off with a food chain worksheet that they worked on together on the Smart Board.
This was a basic science class. They played a game for the whole period that was called
Symbiosis. I was part of a group learning how to play. This game was similar to go fish except
it was with science terms. Students have to ask other students within the group whether or not
they have a certain card that goes with a card they already have. They are essentially learning
about different associations and characteristics between organisms. This game also helps them
recognize the food chain. Classroom management was adequate. The students were in groups
that were monitored well.
My observation of a math teacher was actually broken up into three different ones! I
observed a math teachers from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. I noticed a huge difference in the
behavior of the students between seventh and eighth grade more so than sixth and seventh. My
cooperating teachers classis seventh grade and they seem coddled way more when compared to
an eighth grade class or even a sixth grade class in some manner. The eighth grade teacher had
good voice inflection. She was definitely in control of her classroom. Her students listened up
and learned. She is very methodical with her teaching. Her approach to me seems like she gets to
the point and gets things done. I learned a lot from her teaching style.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, sixth grade wasnt much different from eighth
except for the fact that the content was harder. In sixth grade, the students were using technology
more and getting more involved. This was funneled through Class Dojo which is something
every teacher stressed importance about. It is an easy and creative way to keep track of student
attendance and behavior. It also keeps teachers organized with missing assignments and such.
There is also an app for Class Dojo and parents can have easy access to it to see if their kid was
doing good or bad in school that day. This class was very discussion based. The teacher is very
exciting to learn from. His room was filled with posters for students to look around and receive
quick knowledge from. He also had the 10 Common Core standards for sixth grade on his wall,
mainly for himself though. The students were having fun learning in this interactive classroom.
This sixth grade teacher has an ideal job in my eyes.
Right in the middle of sixth and eighth grade comes seventh. This seventh grade class
was different from my cooperating teachers class. The class was rather small and manageable.
The teacher uses her voice to grab the attention of the students. The students know when she is
being serious or not. This class was playing the game Who wants to be a Millionaire? using
math questions related to what they have been learning. The students loved this! A student would
be called on from a particular group and have to go up to the board and click on the correct
answer. This teacher stressed technology in the classroom. She also told me that organization is
essential for student learning. Test-taking strategies were emphasized! The students need to be
ready for the PSSAs in all aspects.
Overall, these observations were great and filled with learning. I took a lot from the
different levels of math I observed especially. You ca never learn enough. There is always room

for improvement and when you want to become a teacher, it is crucial to make sure your
intuition is on par as the years go by.

Lesson Reflection
The lesson my block partner and I taught was recognized as extremely proficient by our
cooperating teacher. This lesson was very informing. The students were well-behaved and
listened quite well. The students really enjoyed the way we interacted with them. We only had
four weeks with them so I could understand why they would feel uncomfortable with us leading
a classroom. I feel that they were rather comfortable and were willing to hear what we had to say.
They respected us as educators.
The whole lesson ran very smoothly. My block partner and I had good speaking
transitions and we collaborated well together. We had decent use of technology, projecting work
onto the Smart Board. We made sure students were all working and giving their best effort. If
they were stuck on something we would individually help them or announce it to the class as a
whole. They responded well to us.
The students loved the game we played with them at the end of class because it gave
them a chance to get up out of their seats and have fun interacting with their peers. We made sure
not to bore them with a bunch of work. As the lesson went on, we had to adapt a lot. We
anticipated the students not knowing the properties of exponents all that well and we were
wrong. We had to come up with harder questions on the fly in order to give them a challenge.
This lesson was very informative and pretty fun for the students.