First Fieldwork Experience

Hello again...

I have completed my first day of fieldwork! What a crazy experience; it was amazing, but crazy! Let me see if I can put my thoughts down on paper..

To start, the good thing about the way that this fieldwork was set up was that it provided us, future teachers, two opportunities to teach the same lesson. Being that the class was broken up into two groups, it allowed us to implement the lesson, learn from our mistakes, and correct the lesson the second time around. We would teach one half of the class first, while the other half was being taught by my peers, and then we would switch groups to teach the lesson again.

Our lesson went as planned; each event was able to be elaborated upon, but there was one issue. Time was against us! Being that the lessons that we had created were made for a forty minute class period, it was very difficult to try to fit the lesson into a twenty-five minute time period. We were able to incorporate each portion of the lesson, but I felt that if we had more time, the lesson could have been more beneficial for the students. For example, during the first lesson, we were so focused on time that we became nervous, and never went over the correct way to fill in the graphic organizer. But then, during the second lesson, we were so focused on going over the correct way to fill out the organizer that we did not spend as much time on the topic areas as we should have.

For myself, after viewing the video, I have realized so many things. One, I need to slow down. I need to learn how to pace my words, slow down my talking as I am trying to express knowledge to the students. Second, I need to be way more enthusiastic when I am teaching, as do my peers. I think that we were all so focused on making sure that we said the right things, and that we were not going over our time limit, that we just simply forgot why we were actually there. We were all so serious, making sure that we made each point that was intended. That emotion overcame the emotion of joy that we were all actually feeling at the time. Third, I think that no matter the time limit, we should always take our time. Granted, we are not actual teachers in our own classrooms who can use their time as they wish, but I feel that is something that should be remembered from this experience. Take your time!