Field Experience Reflection

In the Spring of 2015, I took a field experience class with Mrs. Heidi Gilligan, a class in which we were required to spend time in different classroom settings to get a feel for the structure and format of the classroom. It was in this class that I was fortunate enough to be placed with a pair of team teachers at Carver Elementary named Mrs. Cummins and Mrs. Watkins. Together, this duo created a learning environment that was bar none! As I spent my time observing and interacting with their students, I was so impressed by the way these teachers were able to put together their lessons, adapt to changes at the drop of a hat, and create an atmosphere that was truly conducive to learning. Although they excelled in every aspect of the MOSPE standards,

Cummins and Mrs. Watkins were undoubtedly quite knowledgeable when it came to the content and material they were presenting to the students. As I observed their class, I never once saw them miss a beat when a question was asked, and they conveyed superior understanding regardless of the subject being taught. Furthermore, rather than simply knowing the material, both teachers proved to be skilled in transferring that knowledge to the students through a variety of teaching/learning strategies, as well as by differentiating activities and lessons as they saw fit. More than anything else, however, what really impressed me was how well the teachers cooperated with one another in the class. They both used their own experiences as teachers, coupled with content knowledge, and fashioned a class that operated as seamlessly as could be hoped

This particular class was made up of around 40 students, and is located in a room about 3 times the size of a normal classroom. This made for a classroom with tremendous potential for rambunctiousness and plenty of distractions. What I was pleased to see, however, was that the students had been taught from the onset of the year how they were expected to behave throughout the day, regardless of what they were doing or where they were. In fact, on one of the days I was in the class, Mrs. Watkins was gone for the day, leaving Mrs. Cummins with 40 students all by herself. To be honest, I was nervous for her to begin with, but I could see in no time that she had no intention of having any trouble that day. She and Mrs. Watkins had instilled these positive expectations in the students to the point that they could practically operate without a teacher present to tell them what to do. As Mrs. Cummins put it, the class functioned “like a well-oiled machine.” The environment that the teachers had created for the students was truly the epitome of an environment conducive to learning, and this was made perfectly evident as the students went about their business with little to no