Dorie Isaac

Deborah Fast

EDU221

December 6, 2021

Service-Learning Journal #4

My experience with service learning in an elementary school classroom was not much

different than I originally expected. I was placed in Ms. Loni Fosburgh’s second-grade class at

San Marcos Elementary in Chandler. On the day that I went in to meet her, I was greeted by both

Ms. Fosburgh and another second-grade teacher, Mrs. Lauren Delfino-Karl (DK). The three of us

decided that for me to gain the most out of my experience, I would be switching between the

rooms every week. This was already different than what I anticipated, but I was excited,

nonetheless.

On my first day of service learning, I signed in with Charles, the school security guard,

and made my way to the front office. Office administration took some of my information and

guided me to Ms. Fosburgh’s room. When I went in, students were all around the room, either

reading with a para, doing small group work in the back with Ms. Fosburgh, or working on

Google Classroom on their laptops at their desks. I was not formally introduced that day, but

instead sat back quietly and observed. I was anticipating students to be chattier with themselves,

but to my surprise, they stayed on task. My first day was great, and I became the unofficial

Official Shoe-Tier and Jacket Zipper of the class.

Throughout the semester, I would switch between Ms. Fosburgh and Mrs. DK’s rooms. It

was interesting to see the difference in how the students acted and how the rooms were managed.

I noticed that when Ms. Fosburgh wanted her students’ attention, she would raise her hand and
stay silent until the students followed. Mrs. DK did the opposite, by using a small bell or singing

a cute tune that the students would then repeat. Both teachers’ strategies for gaining students’

attention seemed to work great for their respective classes. Another strategy I noticed was to aide

in time management, each teacher would set an alarm on their phones that would go off when an

activity was over or when students had to leave for interventions. I also noticed that allowing

bodily movement played a major role in each teachers’ classrooms. For math in Ms. Fosburgh’s

room, students would stand in any spot they chose and do jumping jacks, snap their fingers, or

jump as they counted by two, five and ten. Mrs. DK was not strict about making students stay

seated; she allowed them to work where they were comfortable and walk around if they felt

antsy. I noticed that this resulted in students sitting longer and paying better attention when the

class would work as a whole. I was impressed with the use of technology in the classroom and

loved the implementation of online resources, such as Google Classroom or FlipGrid to aide in

student learning.

I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to observe both Ms. Fosburgh and Mrs. DK’s

rooms. I went on a field trip with the grade to MAC Farm in Maricopa and learned alongside the

students about farming and agriculture. I gained professional knowledge and made connections

where I would not have if it wasn’t for my service-learning experience. I am also grateful

because prior to this, I had only had classroom experience with toddlers and didn’t know what to

expect from second graders. I learned methods to keeping students actively engaged and

attentive, and learned ways to implementing standards in the classroom. The rooms were as

bright and colorful as I had imagined, and every day was just as busy and fun as I had hoped.

After this experience, I can see myself teaching in a second-grade classroom in the future.