Ashley Molisee

Middle School Practicum

31 October 2022

Final

I learned a lot of important things during my middle school practice at Madison Middle

School. One important thing I have learned is how the students interact with each other and the

teacher. I learned their sense of humor and what they like to comment on. I also learned what

they know and do not know. Lastly, I learned the best way they learn as a group.

Relating to my first example, how the students interact with each other and the teacher, I

mostly paid attention to how they interacted. The students interacted with each other in a playful

and joking/sassy way. I found this humorous most of the time. I found that middle schoolers are

very dramatic. Knowing this and taking this knowledge into my future teaching career will help

me interact and teach them. This means that when I need the students to be serious, I have to

make sure they know this can happen in the real world and that they will use it. That way they

will take it seriously. Watching the teacher, I realized I also would need to come up with some

sort of an attention grabber such as the Bulldog Clap. Middle schoolers are very chatty and if you

do not have an attention grabber then your class will constantly be lost. Attending Mrs. Wiese’s

class also taught me that I need to have a schedule to stick to constantly if I am to get through the

full lessons and assignments.

I got a brief overview, these last few weeks, on what students know and do not know in

middle school. Even though I can have a brief vision of the knowledge students have, I can not

always assume. I liked that The reading teacher would constantly bring up words the students

may not know in the essay they were reading. This helped the students learn new words and
helped those who excelled in the class give their point of view or help demonstrate what they

knew. This showed that she was reaching out to everyone in the class. Constantly, The reading

teacher would put aside class time to talk about the experiences students would have that are

related to the topic at hand. I loved that she did this since it provided bonding time for the whole

class. Today, October 31st was my last day in practicum and they talked about private and public

schools. She let the students take the conversation and provide what they knew about the subject.

This helped them get warmed up to read the essay about private and public schools.

In the math class, I observed the students consistently answering rhetorical questions the

math teacher would give to the class when explaining a topic. This helped assess the student in a

formative way and to understand if they knew the subject matter or if they retained the

information just taught. I could tell this definitely helped the students understand the lesson

better. The students that didn’t answer would figure their question out along the way with Mrs.

Wiese writing on the board and students shouting the answer. This way it killed two birds with

one stone. Students definitely learned visually. I learned that when the math teacher would write

on the board, the students would grasp the concept better by visualizing it.

I learned three huge concepts during my middle school practice. One consisted of the

knowledge the middle schoolers obtained in their previous years of elementary school and what

they did not. I will always keep an open mind when teaching my students. I learned to always

pick vocabulary or subjects that might be hard for students to grasp and take time to explain it. I

also learned how students interact with each other and what to use as a good attention grabber

when they get rowdy. Lastly, I learned how the students learn. They learn both visually and

hands-on.