Madilyn Oye

DSU Faculty

Community Service Paper

February 15, 2019

My thirty hours of community service have taken place in the Fishback Center on

campus at South Dakota State University in Brookings. I am one of five head teachers in the

three and four-year-old classroom in the afternoons. Throughout the week I am expected to

make a lesson plan when assigned, create a daily small group plan, assess children’s needs,

strengthen relationships with children, and clean up the classroom so that all is in order for the

next classroom session. In order to make sure I am doing things correctly, my mentor teacher,

Dan Stluka gives input every day. This experience of being in this classroom has really

broadened my knowledge on the way children develop and different ways to help improve

their development.

In order to keep track of the children’s development within the room, we have an app

called “Seesaw”. This is similar to the social media app called Instagram. Photos or videos are

taken of all the children in the room and posted on the app with a caption. Once the caption is

chosen, there is an option to tag a child that allows only their parents to view it. There are also

folders that the picture or video can be placed under. Some of those folders are as follows;

communication and language, early literacy, early math, emotional development, fine motor

development, large motor development, science and inquiry, and social development. I think

that it is important that the photo or video is placed into one or more of these folders due to

the fact that it gives me insight on the child’s development/progress as a teacher.

 We recently were expected to set goals for the children and to then inform their parents

regarding the children's success in reaching those goals. In order to do this, I was assigned three

children to create goals and monitor their success. With the help of the pictures taken over the

course of this semester, I am able to create a goal and place that goal with a photo of a child

obtaining a certain checkpoint/success. This not only allows the parents to see their child

obtaining that goal but also strengthens my relationship with the children’s parents.

My mentor teacher has emphasized the importance of having a good relationship not

only with the children but also their parents as this can lead a child to be more successful. With

my assigned three children, I got the privilege to do home visits with them as well. This was a

new experience for me and I was very hesitant at first. However, it allowed my future

students/children to get a better sense of who their teacher was and it also allowed a

connection between the parents and I. After doing the home visits, it has been easy to

approach the children’s parents at pickup or drop off and has allowed me to be more

comfortable in sharing important information about their child.

These experiences in the classroom have given me great insight on what I will need to

utilize when becoming a teacher in my own classroom one day. I have learned that not every

day is going to be a good day for every child. Everyone has bad days! I have learned that plans

can change and often times they will. Sometimes things don’t work out the way they are

expected to and that’s fine. Becoming a teacher takes patience, hard work, and the ability to

build strong relationships. I look forward to new horizons and am fortunate to have had such a

great mentor teacher and experience for my community service.