Field Experience Reflection

This most definitely semester was one for the books in my learning experience as a teaching candidate. Through Field Experience 1 and the time I have spent with fifth graders at First Street Elementary School, under Mr. Patrick Stelma, I have been challenged to grow in the area of professionalism, teaching English Language Learners (ELL), having confidence in myself and patience with difficult students. I cherish this time of active and challenging learning in the classroom alongside students who had real feelings, needs and personalities. There has been significant growth in my ability to manage a classroom of over 30 students but more noteworthy has been my progress in working with two students at the same time, giving them personalized material

Stelma’s reflection of my time in his classroom on the Character Evaluation Form, “Ms. Hrabar demonstrates proficiency in all of the character traits. However, her sense of patience and kindness shines through in her interactions with my students. Ms. Hrabar has been hard working, diligent and is of enormous benefit to me ... she would make an excellent teacher someday if she so chooses.” I will choose so and I believe the time I spend these past ten weeks in the classroom twice a week has had an eternal impact as well. I cannot wait to get into the teaching field and be a part of what God is doing in these classrooms on a more consistent

I will need to put “deposits” in each of their “banks” in order to create a warm, welcoming and exciting classroom that they want to be a part of. Getting students on board for learning is my goal and I believe it has to start with personal connection. This won’t take the place of classroom management, but having a teammate, partnership mentality for learning will help me be able to facilitate student learning in a way that empowers them to get their eyes off of their textbooks, be creative in their thinking and develop a strong sense of problem solving (Lynch, 2016, pp. 5). Students need to take ownership of their learning and also recognize the learning needs of others. I want to cultivate a culture of respect, encouragement and hard-working students that help each other in learning and the progress as a whole class not individual social circles throughout the