Teaching Observations

This past week I had the awesome opportunity to go and observe a 5th grade classroom. It was quite the delight for me, as I love children, and a school setting is a fun place to see them. The teacher that I went to observe used various learning methods. The most prominent learning "theory" that we learned about that Mrs. Day uses in her classroom is definitely Behaviorism. She has expectations for her students, and they are aware of them and if they aren't following those rules, they aren't rewarded for their actions. I saw this in her class multiple times. On one occasion, two students were roughhousing with each other while preparing for the next lesson. After this occurred, they were told to "pull cards" which, if it happens multiple times, they lose privileges. This makes forming their behavior something that they are in control of.

In the time that I was in her class, she had used multiple learning strategies. The students, certain ones, were allowed to be on the computers and do their own learning that way (they were playing a game). During this time, she was reading the students a book, a read aloud. Later, there was a science display about water erosion. During the presentation, Mrs. Day asked the students about their predictions about what they thought was going to happen, and then they watched and saw what happened. In all of these activities, there were students who left the main group and went to other parts of the classroom.

Overall, it was a very educational experience and I am more than excited to spend more time in the classroom begin able to see how she teacher her students in all of the subjects. I am sure that I am going to learn a lot about the methods to teaching that I may want to use someday and to be able to see ways that a teacher teaches that I don't think would flow well with the way that I am.

Service Learning Opportunity

For Intro To Education, we are required to write blog posts. So this first one is about the service learning experience that I am choosing to do.

For my service learning opportunity, I am deciding to observe in a 5th grade classroom. I have observed in a younger class, and I am excited to see how the older kids are in class. I have chosen to do my observing at Grovecrest Elementary in Pleasant Grove. The neighborhood that Grovecrest is in is close to Pleasant Grove Junior High School, and it is nestled in a neighborhood. The students in the class, from what I have heard are quite the group. I've heard good things about the class and I'm excited to get into the classroom and experience it for myself.

From what I understand about service learning, I think that immersing myself into a classroom is one of the best things to do. And serving is something that makes people better, and when you volunteer for things, I have found that the desire to be there is stronger, so I always want to learn something from it. With this chance to put the things that I am learning, and being able to put them into action in an actual classroom. In me experience so far with service learning, I am excited to get back into a place where I am able to learn things from experience instead of just reading about things. Especially in classrooms, where getting down to the hard stuff is the most effective way to learn if something is the right thing or not. This opportunity to serve and learn is one that I am very excited to take on and get started with.

Miss Jasmine's Blog!

Hello! So this is a blog that is being used to describe some assignments and things that I am learning about teaching.

I hope to be able to look back on this blog and be able to learn from all of the things that I have learned and don't remember, but also be able to use the things that I have learned.

So enjoy, I hope you all can learn something too.