Lincoln Elementary School – 5th Grade ELA & Social Studies

Spring 2023

Over the course of the year, I have had the unique opportunity to be a part of two classrooms at
Lincoln Elementary, spending time with both 4th and 5th grade. Fall semester, I had the privilege
to student teach in the 4th-grade classroom under Belva Bethel. This experience was not only
rich in learning best practices and application of my formal knowledge but enjoyable as well.
During the spring semester, I transitioned into the 5th-grade classroom where I was instructing
ELA and Social Studies. While this class struggled with a variety of different behavior
challenges, it was intimidating to step into. However, I saw this as a healthy challenge and
eagerly accepted the opportunity to have my own classroom. This allowed increasing my
responsibilities to independently develop curriculum and classroom management. Though this
added what sometimes felt overwhelming. By the end of the semester, I saw an incredible
amount of improvement across my entire class and couldn’t be happier that I took the risk to
change roles in the middle of the year.

As mentioned above, one of the most challenging aspects of this class was the various conflicting
behaviors present. There were multiple days when additional assistance was needed from school
management to appropriately discipline the classroom after especially bad outbreaks. These
outbreaks typically consisted of multiple students across multiple different classroom
environments. Nonetheless, over the course of the year, as I adjusted to the students and they
adjusted to me, the outbreaks improved and we were able to get back on track with the
curriculum.

I was incredibly lucky to have the assistance of Jen Sutton, our school’s curriculum advisor, who
helped me almost daily at times to create effective curriculum for the students while I adjusted to
the new role. I also had a great 5th-grade co-teacher, Mrs. Spradley, who helped guide me
through the unknowns of my first classroom. I relied on small group instruction for most of my
reading curriculum to accommodate a wide range of different student abilities. We used a
screener at the beginning of the semester and divided the students into different groups
depending on their benchmark testing. This was especially effective and I saw many students
grow incredible amounts in their reading scores. For social studies, I leaned into project-based
learning to help students develop soft skills while meeting standards. Oftentimes students were
especially excited and motivated by the opportunity to present for the class on the topic of the
curriculum that week. Overall, though this experience was extremely challenging, it was all
worth it when reflecting on the academic growth of my students and the relationships that were
formed by the students and myself, learning together.