What? So What? Now What?

Reflective Journaling
This well-used and successful model for reflection will help you make connections and deeper meanings
from your observations. When it comes to making journal entries following your field observations,
please be sure to include a section answering each reflective question, using the descriptions below to
guide your writing.

FIELD OBSERVATION – NOTES

Grade/Subject: 4th grade - Mrs. Maldonado - Math

Lesson Topic: Multiply One-Digit and Four-Digit Numbers

What?
(Reporting what happened, objectively). Like a scientist in the field, describe in detail the facts about the events in
the classroom that you are observing. Be sure that judgmental or interpretive writing is not done for this portion.

Each of the following questions must be answered:

What happened? What events are taking place throughout the lesson? How did class begin? What are students
doing? What did the teacher do? What behaviors do you see from the students? Describe the room (if it is your first
time).

The classroom was set up in groups, there were five tables, each one having their own shelf at
the end of the table that held all their school work and computers. The teacher, Mrs. M, sat in the
back corner of her classroom, but most of the time she stood upfront either sitting at the projector
or at her podium. There is schoolwork and projects hanging all around the room, the science
experiment in the back on top of a long short shelf in the back of the classroom, and then a work
table where I usually sit with small groups of students that need help. To get the students
attention between lessons and when it started, Mrs. M holds up a peace sign silently, waiting for
groups to follow along and then gives out “table points” for the first couple tables that got quiet
and ready for the lesson to begin. As the lesson started, Mrs. M. sat in the corner of the
classroom right next to the projector and helped students by demonstrating what was asked from
the worksheet they had. As she was asking the class questions like “what do I do next?” or “how
should I approach this problem?”, students were rewarded “character cards”, which were used
towards a bigger prize at the end of the quarter, or candy if they answered questions. The
students followed along, some of them just copying down what she had written and not engaging
themselves in the lesson which I noticed was a big problem for certain students as I continued
my service learning. To handle this problem, Mrs. M. simply just called the student’s name and
either looked at them or asked them what would do for the next problem. This seemed to help.
The classroom was very diverse, a lot of the students were at different points of their learning
and I usually ended up working with students that needed the extra help at the back table.
So What? (What did you learn from the observation? What important ideas immerged from observation?). In
this section, you should describe your feelings, ideas, and analysis of what you observed in the classroom. This
usually should happen quite a while after the observation, so that the events have time to resonate more with you for
reflection.

I think using a reward system is really helpful when trying to get attention from students
especially at an elementary level. Having “character cards” and “table points” was very much
needed with this class especially, they were all very talkative and I could tell it was difficult at
times for Mrs. M. to get their attention and focus. I personally will be using a reward system
similar to this one, as well as the peace sign to get students to pay attention when needed.
Personally teaching a lesson on multiplication knowing that half of the students did not
understand it completely, I would have gone through examples and taught it on the white board
instead of a worksheet. To assess the students, I would have given the worksheet after the lesson
was finished. To engage the students more in the lesson, I would assign each table a problem and
they would have to put it on the white board with how they solved it.

Each of the following questions must be answered:

• The Classroom Environment: How was the room set up for the lesson? What was different this time or from your
own past classroom environments? Did the set up play a part in the success of the lesson? What might have been
changed to make it better?

The room was set up in groups as mentioned above, Mrs. M was sitting at the projector showing
the students a few problems while engaging them by asking questions and giving out rewards. In
my past experience, a lesson was taught with notes rather than a worksheet with simply just
problems and examples, and it was taught on the white board and the projector. Knowing that
this class was a bit more talkative, I would have separated the groups into two students per
group, each desk right next to each other facing the front. I feel like this would have been better
for the students knowing that a lot of them struggled with multiplication.

• The Students: Do you think they learned what they were trying to learn? Did the lesson reach each student
individually? What were some of the differences among the students and how could they have been addressed
differently, perhaps?

I think some of the students were still confused because a lot of them came to the back table so I
could help them finish the worksheet. I don’t think it reached every student, but I know some of
them were finished with the worksheet in minutes. Those students were also in my honors math
group, which I also guided through a project throughout my service learning. However, the
students I was helping with multiplication mostly had difficulties with learning how each way
you could solve the problem worked, so I went over each one with them and they each picked
one that they liked best. As a group, I guided them through the worksheet by demonstrating how
to set it up, and which numbers went where. I feel like if there were notes to refer back to it
would be a lot easier for the students to understand.
• The Teacher: What methods did the teacher use and were they effective? What things did he/she do to help
students learn? Do you agree with his/her approach? Why or why not? How did they use their voice/body
language? Did they manage the class well in your opinion?

The teacher taught the students by doing a few problems and asking questions as she went along
to help engage the students and assess as she went. As I said before, I believe that notes would
have been more effective in teaching this lesson. She helped the students by asking questions
throughout the lesson, and then rewarded them after they answered. I really like this approach, I
will be using some type of reward system for things like this in my future classroom. After
teaching the lesson, she sent some kids over to the back table with me to help, knowing they
didn’t quite understand it. I feel like the teacher had a lot of respect in this class because she
would just look or say a students name and they would get back to what they were supposed to
be doing. She was facing towards the class in the corner of the room as she taught the lesson, so
some of the students in the back weren’t focused as much, but she could tell and would usually
say something.

• The Lesson: Were the different components of the lesson complement and build on one another? Did the methods
help or hinder the learning of the objective, do you think? What parts of the lesson worked? Didn’t work?

The lesson first had some background of easier problems that the students had faced in the past
lessons, went onto estimation, then using different methods of multiplication to solve the
problem. They all complemented each other, and I feel like the estimations by rounding the
numbers was really helpful for the students to check their work after they had done the problem.
The part of the lesson that I thought could have been taught on its own was using the different
methods of multiplication, this ended up confusing a lot of the students. There was the box
method, standard form, “criss cross” method, and fingers method from what I can remember, this
was difficult for the students to remember how to do each one using 4-digit numbers. From what
I could tell, most of the students were either using box method or standard form. Usually the
students that had the most difficulty were using the box method which helped them visualize it
better, rather than the standard form method. Overall, I believe that teaching all of these methods
in this lesson didn’t really get the learning objective covered because the students were more
focused on how to do each method in order to solve the problem, rather than just solving it with
the method that they were most comfortable doing.
Now What?
(How does this impact you in your future activities as a teacher? What do you need to learn more about? What
would you like to change?). In this part, you should consider how this information and observation impacts your
future as a potential teacher. What things do you need to learn or would like to know more about? What will it take
to accomplish this?

Each of the following questions must be answered:

How did this experience impact your views about education, teaching, or learning? What did you learn about
yourself as a teacher from this experience? What things changed/stayed the same? What things would you like to
learn more about as a possible professional in this field? What ways would you go about learning these things or
finding this information?

After completing my service learning, I realized I wanted to teach at a higher grade level instead
of 4th. I would rather have 5th-6th grade because I would be able to have a more difficult
curriculum and engage with the students at a more sophisticated level. My views of education
and teaching are still the same, I still believe that every student brings their own type of
intelligence into the classroom it just depends on how you, as the teacher, bring that out and
allow the child to grow. I feel like my service learning teacher had the same feelings, it was just
difficult for her to reach some of her students. However, I did not realize how diverse the
classroom really is for different levels of intelligence. Going in I was expecting there to be a few
students that had trouble and a few that were more fast paced, but in reality there were some
students that had difficulties with math but exceeded in english and vise-versa. As I continue my
education and future service learning experiences, I will keep in mind how to approach that as a
teacher regarding lesson planning and assessing my students. I would like to learn more about
how grading works for elementary school students. In this classroom, she would grade some
students that had some difficulties with the subject differently than the regular students. Instead
of grading them all the same, she would only grade certain problems and then the others she
would leave correct even if they weren’t. I felt like this was unfair, but I think it all depends on if
the student has a learning disability or some other problem. I would also like to learn more about
what other responsibilities a teacher may have outside of the classroom, like student council or
extracurriculars. To find this information, I plan on talking to other teachers and asking them
what their personal experience is. I would also research about grading differently regarding
learning disabilities or other factors that play into that.