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Amy HowlandEDUC 389

Field Experience

February 25, 2015

Today was my first day of observing math in a 4th grade classroom at Christ Lutheran

School. I have worked in this particular classroom before, so I had an idea of how this classroom

operated. The teacher, Mrs. Smith, is a La Verne alumni and has known me my entire life. Mrs.

Smith was very excited that I was coming into her class to help (with this lesson in particular).

When I walked into the classroom, she introduced me to the students and explained that I was

there to observe and help them with math. The students were at individual tables that had been

put together to make groups of about 6 students. The teacher’s desk was at the front of the room.

The walls were decorated, but nothing over the top.

Mrs. Smith began the lesson on 3D shapes by getting out foam shapes. She explained

what each one was and the difference between them and reviewed terminology (i.e. angles,

sides). She also gave real world examples for some of the shapes, like the square pyramid, she

told the students to think about an Egyptian pyramid. She then held up the shapes and had

students verbally identify the correct name. I helped her pass out the papers with the shape

designs on them. She explained to the students which lines to cut and which to not cut. Students

were instructed that they would take the plane shape and turn them into a 3D shape by taping the

paper together. Students had 6 different shapes to make and they taped them onto a large sheet of

paper and labeled each shape. Mrs. Smith and I sat at the back table and students came up as they

finished cutting the paper so we could help them assemble some of the harder shapes. The

cylinder shape was particularly hard, but we made the best of it. After we had helped a few

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students, we realized that it would be best if Mrs. Smith and I only concentrated on helping make

the cylinder shapes and leaving the other shapes for the students to make.

I noticed that all of the students had a firm understanding of the different shapes and

could easily identify the correct name. However, some of them struggled with some fine motor

skills like cutting correctly, folding, and taping. Before the lesson, Mrs. Smith had told me to

monitor the amount of tape they were using and I really did have to stop some students for taking

several inches of tape, when they only really needed just a little bit. Overall, I think that the

students had fun with the lesson, but I am not sure how much it reinforced the concept because

they all understood the concept before making the shapes.

March 6, 2015

Today I observed in Mrs. Smith’s 4th grade class again. Today's topic was mixed numbers and

improper fractions. When I found out this is what they were learning today, I got a little nervous.

But, Mrs. Smith’s lesson was a nice refresher for me to be able to help the students. To begin,

Mrs. Smith explained the topic they would be doing today and wrote some examples on the

whiteboard. She did several examples of converting mixed numbers into improper fractions and

improper fractions converted to mixed numbers. Mrs. Smith had students following along in

their textbooks. Mrs. Smith would randomly pull a stick with a student's name on it and they

would have to answer a problem she gave them out of their book. The student did really well

with this exercise and seemed to grasp the concept.

It was then time for student to do their independent practice. Every student has a math

workbook, so Mrs. Smith told them what pages to tear out and had them get started. Mrs. Smith

reminded the students that they could ask me for help if she was busy with another student. After

a few minutes on their own, I began to have students come up to me and ask for help. I explained

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a few things to students and they went back to their seats and finished on their own. Then, I

ended up with two boys sitting at the table with me. One of the boys would periodically ask me

questions and I could tell that he felt more comfortable sitting there with me while he worked

just in case he needed help.

When the other boy came to the table, I underestimated how much difficulty he was

having with the subject. He said that he did not get the part on converting the mixed number to

an improper fraction. I helped him through one problem and he tried the next few on his own. He

was doing them correctly and I encouraged him. He finished with that section and moved onto

the next, converting improper fractions to mixed numbers. I thought he would continue to do

well, but this is where things went downhill. He started to become very frustrated to the point

where he wasn't even trying the problem, he was just rewriting it. I tried to walk him through the

steps, but he was not listening. He then began to cry and hyperventilate a little bit. I was trying to

calm him before he became so loud that the rest of the class heard, but I was not successful. At

this point, I really didn't know what to do. Mrs. Smith heard what was going on and I just gave

her a look of “help me”. There was only about two minutes before recess, so Mrs. Smith excused

the class and came over to talk to the boy. While Mrs. Smith was talking to him telling him that

he didn't need to act like that, I thought to myself that this must not be a new thing for him. After

he calmed down, he went out to recess and Mrs. Smith explained that he has a behavioral

disorder and this type of behavior is typical of him. As it turns out, both of the boys I spent much

of the time helping both have learning disabilities. Mrs. Smith was very appreciative that I was

there today for this lesson to help the two boys. She also said I handled the situation really well.

This was a very new experience for me. I had never worked with any type of special

needs student before. Because I did not know beforehand, I was really taken aback with the

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situation and I wasn't sure how to handle it. I think that having this particular experience was

really good for me and taught me a lot on how to handle things like this. I learned how difficult it

can be for a teacher to have several students with learning disabilities in one class. I also learned

strategies on how to handle future situations should they arise again in my observing or in my

future classroom. Mrs. Smith happened to snap this picture of me working with the two students.

March 17, 2015

Today was my first day observing in my former 5th grade teachers classroom at La Verne

Heights Elementary. Mrs. Horne was really excited that I was coming to her class. Mrs. Horne’s

classroom is set up with lots of posters, color, and student work on the walls. Mrs. Horne’s desk

is in the corner of the room, while the students have partner desks that are set up in rows in the

center of the room. When I got there, she introduced me to her 3rd grade class and explained

why I was there. She even said “Miss. Amy wants to be a teacher, so let’s show her how good

third grades act and not scare her away”.

At the beginning of the lesson, Mrs. Horne had the students take out their math

workbooks. Mrs. Horne then described that they would be learning about fractions. Mrs. Horne

used the overhead projector to conduct the lesson. She had her own workbook page that she

used. This was the first time the students were learning about fractions, so she used many visuals

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to help them understand the parts of a whole. She told them to specifically use a rectangle to

shade and not a circle. The students asked Mrs. Horne questions as she was doing the lesson. She

then had them work on some problems on their own. Several students came up to Mrs. Horne or

me to ask questions. I started to walk around the room and help students who had their hand up. I

helped one little boy understand the difference between two fractions. I had him shade in parts of

a rectangle to help him visualize the difference. As the students were finishing up, Mrs. Horne

told them all that they all did really well with this difficult topic and that she was really proud of

them. I liked that she gave them this positive reinforcement after the lesson.

I stayed a little while after the math lesson was over and March Madness had just started,

so Mrs. Horne all called them onto the carpet. She described what March Madness was and that

their college team was playing one of the other class’s college team. She even showed them the

bracket that people fill out and told them what time the basketball game was on. At this point it

became evident to me that many of the kids were wearing the same college shirt. Later, she told

me that each class has their own college that they represent. She said it is to get students thinking

and talking about college. I think that this is really fun and interesting idea to integrate college

into the primary classroom.

March 19, 2015

Today I was back at Mrs. Horne’s 3rd grade class. Today’s topic was area. To begin the

lesson, Mrs. Horne had students get out their workbooks. She then started on the lesson by

working on the workbook page. She described the formula for area as length time width. She did

several practice problems with the students. She then had students work on the workbook page

on their own.

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This lesson went faster for the students than the previous time I was there. They didn’t

have as many questions and grasped the concept better. Some students had questions on the word

problem that they had to do. I helped some by having them draw a picture to help them figure out

the area. Because so many of the students completed their work so fast, Mrs. Horne had them

work on their accelerated math. This program is where students can work on different math

concepts and they take tests that move them up in levels. Some of the students were so far along

that they were already working on 4th grade math. It was really interesting for me to help students

with these worksheets. Because all the students are working on different levels, I was working

with a wide variety of math concepts. I had to flip back and forth between concepts that I have

not dealt with in a long time. I observed that students were really excited about the different

levels they were on and if they passed a test to move onto the next level.

March 20, 2015

Today was my last day of spring break, so I decided to fit in some more hours at Mrs.

Smith’s 4th grade classroom. Today’s topic was decomposing fractions. Mrs. Smith had the

students take out their workbook pages. She told the students that they would be decomposing

fractions. When I first got there, she told me what the lesson was about. She told me that it was

really easy because the students had already learned adding and subtracting with unlike

denominators. She thought it was kind of weird that the standard had her going back to teach

decomposing fractions. So, she was doing examples on the board and the students seemed to be

getting the concept. I think that they were a little confused because it was so easy and they had

already learned more about fractions.

As the students worked, I walked around the room and helped students if they needed it.

Because the students were working on a simple concept, they really didn’t need much help. After

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Mrs. Smith was done teaching, she came to talk to me about the lesson. She and I agreed that she

should teach this standard at the beginning of fractions and not towards the end. Most of the

students finished their work fast, so Mrs. Smith had me grade some papers. There were 4 pages

of math to be graded for each student. I worked on grading these papers until I had to leave and

the students went to recess. As I was finishing up the last few papers, Mrs. Smith came over and

started to record the students’ scores in her gradebook. Most of the students did very well on the

packet of homework. Mrs. Smith was so grateful that I was able to finish the entire packet before

I had to leave. Today I learned that as a teacher, I am going to see what works and what doesn’t

and make a change for the next time I teach that standard.

March 27, 2015

Today I observed in Mrs. Smith’s class again. Today’s topic was a worksheet that is

preparing the students for graphing in 5th grade. The worksheet had a graph of equal size boxes

on it that students would eventually fill up with a picture. Another sheet had the colors and how

to color the box. The main point of the worksheet was to get students familiar with a graph and

putting the correct coloring in each box, just like they would put the correct point on a regular

graph. Mrs. Smith had just finished up a unit and wanted to give the students a break before she

started the next unit.

The kids were all so excited to try to figure out what the picture was going to be. Many of

them were saying their guesses. Mrs. Smith had me come to the front of the class and look at the

book that she got the worksheet form. It had several different types of pictures that the teacher

could choose from. Mrs. Smith had chosen an Easter themed picture because it was almost

Easter time. I walked around the room to observe how students were doing working on making

their graph picture. I noticed that some of the quieter students were farther along in graphing the

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picture than some of the more talkative students. Some students were very concerned with

finding just the right color to use. A few of the students messed up on their sheet, so they had to

start all over again. At the end of math time, none of the students had finished the picture, but

some got far enough along to tell that it was a picture of bunnies.

April 10, 2015

Today I was scheduled to observe in Mrs. Horne’s class, but when I got there we had a

little change of plans. It has been state testing time, and her class hadn’t finished testing yet and

she forgot to tell me. Because they were doing state tests, I wasn’t allowed to be in the room.

However, I was in Mrs. Horne’s class long enough to see how they were testing. They were all

taking the tests on laptop computers. This is just fascinating to me! I remember all the test

packets and scantrons that I had to use when I took state tests in elementary school. Now, they

just use computers. I mentioned this to Mrs. Horne and she said that they had had a few problems

with using the computers. So, since I couldn’t stay in Mrs. Horne’s room she offered to call

another teacher to see if they were teaching math. She called the 1st grade teacher and she kindly

offered to switch to a math lesson so that I could observe in her class.

The first grade teacher’s name is Liz Quezada. She was not a teacher at LVH when I was

in school there, so I had never met her before. We introduced ourselves and once she found out I

went to La Verne, she told me she teaches reading for the credential program and is an alumni.

When I first walked into her room, I immediately loved how she had it decorated! She had used

the same colors throughout all the décor. This gave the classroom a really cohesive and calm

look. She even had some fun hanging lanterns from the ceiling in the reading corner of the room.

The students were at groups of tables. Each table group had a basket in the middle with supplies

that they might need throughout the day. Her classroom was very organized and neat. Ms.

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Quezada had a large open area in the front of the class, this is where she had her overhead

projector. Her desk was in the back corner of the room, with a large reading carpet and

bookshelf. I noticed that all the books on the shelf were of the same theme, animals. When I first

came into the room, the students were working on writing about an animal. The students were

using the books in the back reading area to help them with their writing assignment.

After a few minutes, Ms. Quezada had the students put their writing away and take out

their math workbooks. She told them (and wrote on the board) which workbook pages they were

to tear out. She reminded them how to tear out the pages without ripping them. The concept for

today was fact families. She started her lesson by reminding the students about addition. She

taught them that you can take a set of numbers and make that set by adding or subtracting the

numbers in the family. The students had a short workbook page to complete on their own. Many

of them finished the worksheet with ease.

Ms. Quezada told me that on Fridays she normally does math stations where the students

rotate from station to station and practice the math they learned that week. She also has a packet

that they work on throughout the year that reviews concepts that they learned earlier. Once the

students were done with the worksheet, they partnered up and played a game using

manipulatives. It was a hundreds game and they used number cubes in ones block and ten sticks

to try to get to 100. The kids really seemed to enjoy the game and it was really fun for me to see

students using manipulatives. Ms. Quezada said that she has a lot of different games that she puts

out that use manipulatives that can kids can do if they finish their work. Because this was the

youngest grade I have observed do math, it was really interesting to see that Ms. Quezada does

so much to retain the information that was taught.

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April 15, 2015

Today I was back at Mrs. Horne’s to observe a lesson on polygons. Mrs. Horne had the

students take their workbooks out. Before she started on the workbook pages, she had a poster

with several of the geometric shapes on it that she reviewed with the students. She also reviewed

what an open and closed shape is. Mrs. Horne and the students then started on the workbook

pages. She did one example with them and then had them figure out the next few. She called on a

few students to explain their answer. She then had them work on the most difficult question on

the page. I observed several pairs of students talking about and working through the problem

together. One student had given an incorrect answer, so a little girl walked up to Mrs. Horne at

the front of the room and explained how she got the right answer. Mrs. Horne then had the girl

share with the rest of the class how she got the answer. She then set the students to work on their

own. I walked around the room and helped students who were struggling. I mostly reread the

problem to them and asked them questions so that they were able to solve the problem on their

own.

Once the students started finishing up, Mrs. Horne said that they could work on their

accelerated math packets. Many of the students were getting new packets printed, scanning their

answers, taking tests, and picking up their new book. It was a little chaotic! But, the students

knew what they were doing and stayed on task really well. One little girl didn’t do very well on

her test. She missed all the problems about money. Mrs. Horne was busy, so she sent the little

girl to me to help her understand the problems that she missed. So, I went through the packet

with her. The first problem we went over, she caught her mistake on her own. As we worked

through the packet, we realized that she made the same mistake for all the problems. Even

though she knew her mistake, I still went through all the problems with her and had her redo

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them. This was a really fun experience for me to work one-on-one with a student. I think after we

went back over the problems she understood how to work with money.

April 17, 2015

Today I was back at Christ Lutheran to observe in Mrs. Smith’s class. Today’s topic was

decimals and place values. I could tell that they had already learned about place value and

decimals separately. Mrs. Smith reviewed the different place values and wrote a large example

on the board. She then added the place values after the decimal point. She did a few examples of

rounding to different place values. At this point, none of the students really had any questions.

She pulled the sticks with their names on it for students to give an answer to a problem from the

textbook. The students all did well with this.

Then, Mrs. Smith told them that they had ten minutes to work on their, before they could

ask her or I any questions. Once those ten minutes was up, there was a line of students who had

questions. She and I were both helping students and noticed that they were not taking the

decimal point into account. The students were just rounding the number as if it were a whole

number. We had to continually remind students what place values they were rounding to and to

remember the decimal point. It was interesting that they all seemed to understand the lesson, but

when it came time to work independently, almost all of them struggled. Mrs. Smith even went

back up to the board to do one example of a harder problem for the students.

May 1, 2015

It had been a few weeks since I had been to Mrs. Smith’s 4th grade class, but today when I

got there, her room was completely decked out with students work. They had just had their open

house, so she had lots of student work up. The 4th grade class goes on an overnight trip to learn

about California history, so she made scrapbook pages of pictures from their trip and had those

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hanging on the wall. She also had student artwork, writing assignments, and poems hanging from

the ceiling. I think it’s always fun to see how teachers decorate their rooms and display student

work.

Today was a review day, so Mrs. Smith really didn’t teach a lesson. Each student had a

couple of worksheet that they needed to work on. They had a test coming up, so this was their

last chance to review. At the beginning of the math time, most students didn’t have any

questions. Mrs. Smith went over a problem from each section. Mrs. Smith gave me two teacher

magazines to look at today. One had decorative stuff for the classroom and the other one had

more educational resources/tools. Looking at these magazines made me really excited to have

my own classroom in a few years! It was also neat to see the different things that teachers can

buy to assist them in teaching; somethings I didn’t even know existed.

The students were coming up to Mrs. Smith and me for help now. The concept that they

were reviewing was converting. This is a topic that I have not worked with in a long time and

because there was no lesson for me to listen to, I was a little lost in helping them. I was able to

help students with some of the problems. For the worksheet to be a review, it seemed that a lot of

the students were struggling with the concept. Mrs. Smith noticed this too and said that when she

had done the lesson, they were not this confused. Some of the students were way farther in the

packet than other students, so it became their homework. Mrs. Smith was really dismayed with

their effort on their work and they were not concentrating on what they were doing. She gave

them a talk about their behavior and effort before they went out to recess.

May 6, 2015

Today was my last day observing in Mrs. Smith’s class. I go their earlier than usual

today, so Mrs. Smith still had an English lesson to do. It was a spelling test and she asked me if I

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wanted to give it. I said sure! The kids all cheered that I was going to give them their test! The

spelling test was 25 words. I read the word, read it in a sentence, and then repeated the word.

After the spelling test, it was time for math. Today’s math topic was mean, median, mode, and

range. This was the first day of the lesson, so Mrs. Smith was just concentrating on mean. I

thought it was fitting that today’s topic was mean because in class, we had just been talking

about it. For the lesson, Mrs. Smith had them take out their interactive math journals. This is a

journal where they cut and past the standards for the lesson and then do several examples of the

concept. It is basically way form of note taking. Mrs. Smith went through the problems in the

journal with the students and then had then work on their workbook pages independently.

The students were really grasping the concept of mean, so Mrs. Smith asked if I would

help with a project that they were going to be doing later in the day. The students had already

made boxes out of popsicle sticks. Mrs. Smith wanted me to sort out the stones that they would

be gluing on the box’s tops. The stones were the clear-colored ones that normally go at the

bottom of a flower vase. She had some bowls that I separated the stones into that would go on

each table. Mrs. Smith told me that they glue the stones on in any pattern that they want and can

even make a handle. Mrs. Smith was going over the math that they had just done and was pulling

student’s number sticks. She pulled number 21 and said “21, that’s how old Miss Amy is going

to be!” the students thought that this was the most exciting thing ever and all cheered and

clapped. Mrs. Smith and I were laughing and Mrs. Smith said “Miss Amy drives a silver car!”

and all the students erupted in cheers and clapping again. It was so funny and a great way to end

my observation hours!

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Reflection

At the beginning of the semester when I found out I had to do 15 observation hours, I was

a little overwhelmed. But, after successfully completing all the hours, I am really appreciative of

those 15 hours. I learned so much about teaching in general, teaching special needs students,

teaching mathematics, managing a classroom, common core standards, and having fun in the

classroom. These are things that you can only learn from being a real classroom setting. It was

very special that the teachers I worked with let me be involved in the classroom and help

students. I think that my experience would have been totally different if the teachers did not want

me involved and I just sat there and watched. Helping the students with their math really helped

me in believing that I will one day soon be a good math teacher. I myself have always struggled

with math, so going into this I was a little nervous. After a few times in the classroom my nerves

went away and I thought to myself “I got this!”

I have worked in the classroom before, but rarely at the time when mathematics was

being taught. All my hours were spent during math time. I had the opportunity to observe

teachers teaching common core standards and what worked and what didn’t work for them. I also

observed children actively engaging in the common core standards. I can read the standards all

day, but being in the classroom really gave me a good sense of they work. In addition, I really

enjoyed learning from all three teachers. They each had their own style of teaching and I gained

a lot of knowledge from them on how to manage a classroom and how to instruct math lessons.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time observing. I absolutely know that this is right career for

me. I am very thankful for these 15 hours spent observing math. It has really boosted my

confidence in teaching mathematics and has given me knowledge that can only be gained from

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being in the classroom. Although tiring and sometimes hard to schedule, this experience was a

great one.

Field Experience Log