Field Experience Reflection

Emma Winter

During the field experience, I was in a second-grade classroom shadowing and assisting a

teacher. I assisted the lead teacher with things that she needed done in the classroom. I also

assisted in free choice play and watched over the students. I watched over how the lead teacher

taught lessons and what kind of lessons and activities she assigned to the children. I also took a

select few children who needed a little more help on reading into the reading room and assisted

them on their reading. We did activities like reading as a whole, and then taking turns reading

passages. Another activity we did was play reading where each individual child had their own

assigned role to read. After they finished reading the story, they would switch roles and read the

story again until they have all read each role in the story.

This experience was an eye-opening look into the classroom. This really gave me a

glimpse of what my future classroom could look like. Before this experience, I had no idea what

to expect from a classroom and from the students in it. The students were wonderful every time I

entered the classroom, as well as the occasional backlashes the typical elementary students give

to teachers. I also got to watch how the students developmentally changed over the semester.

This experience showed growth on how to track development in the students. I saw the growth

they made from the first day of the shadowing to the last day I shadowed the teacher. Even the

littlest things gave the students joy because they knew they made progress in the areas they

struggled with.

Another thing that I had improved on is classroom management, this experience taught

me that within the classroom, not everything will go as planned and that flexibility is key. Not

every lesson the lead teacher had done went as planned. It either went very quickly or took too
much time. Sometimes there are materials that would change at the last minute, and the lesson

plan could change because of the materials. After observing the teacher and the activities she did

in the classroom. There were times that she didn’t get to complete each activity, and she

continued on with the other activities planned.

I watched how the lead teacher would individually help each student improve on the

areas. I would say it gave me insight on how to improve and develop ways to successfully work

with children. The opportunities where I got to work with the reading students on my own really

gave me the confidence I will need in the classroom. I have never worked with children in small

groups or one-on-one before, and this opportunity helped with the development I need. Every

time we met, the teacher would assign me an activity and then if time ran out with that activity,

she told me to come up with my own ideas. This experience gave me the opportunity to be

creative and think out of the box for which activities would be best for the children’s learning.

Observing the children and pinpointing the areas of development they need to improve on

is another thing that I had learned from this experience. Watching the teacher observe the

students during free choice time and documenting the areas they needed extra resources. She

watched if the same student chose the same thing over and over again. The teacher then decided

to take that item out of sight so that student would choose something else to focus on. After I got

comfortable with the students and the classroom environment, I soon decided to pick up that

habit with permission from the teacher. The last thing I learned was keeping the children fully

engaged in the classroom. I will keep in mind what activities work and which activities did not

work. I learned that some of the “cute” ideas, the students did not choose, and they wanted the

more hands-on messy activities to learn.

 Overall, this experience contributed to my professional development in many ways. It

changed my view in the classroom and reminded me on the reason I wanted to become a teacher.

This reason is to see the children grow and develop with ease and see those rewarding faces at

the end of the day.