History 206 Experience in the Schools Reflections

Name Matthew Froehlich

Date: 14 October 2014
Hours completed to date: ______9_hours___________
Reflection 1 (100-300 words each)
Today, the first day I went, was actually the HIS306 students student teaching day.
I got a glimpse of what a future class expectation looked like. I got to watch how the kids
picked apart art sources and analyze them. It is an honors class so the kids were obviously
bright students and analyzed it at a high level. What was also interesting to observe was
the maturity of the students. A decent portion of the period they were on task and focused
but there were times where they got off track and start laughing at immature things. There
were flashes of maturity and immaturity throughout the period.
Reflection 2
Today was a test day for the students so it was pretty quiet until the end when they
talked about some current events they got from news clippings. I spent the day grading
some pamphlets they made about the revolutionary war. After the test, Mr. Gomez had
some volunteers discuss their current events. I thought it was pretty cool the way he
ended the unit with current events in contrast to studying guys from 200 plus years ago.
The conversations were pretty basic and vague. The students are a little young to really
understand the bigger picture in events that unfolded for example in Ferguson, Missouri.
Mr. Gomez provided more context for them, but like I said, they were a little young to really
understand the whole situation. It was obvious that they just googled something, read an
article, and that was their source of information, so they did not get a well rounded idea of
what they were trying to talk about.
Reflection 3
Today the students spent the period working on their fakebook pages. The
students each received a person, place, or event and they had to create a facebook page on
those things. They had to create this page and make comment posts and post photos and
give personal info and such. They also had to become friends with people and places
involved. They students got to get super creative with it and either put actual quotes
and/or put their own comments of what they might say to other people involved. Some
kids had little arguments between opposing generals and admirals and things like that. So
they had fun with it and put their own hashtags and really got into it and that was fun to
watch and help with.
Reflection 4
Today Mr. Gomez had a little competition for the students where he starts at one
side of the room and two kids go head to head on quiz questions and if you answer first and
get it right you keep moving across the classroom going against the next student and they
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try and make it as far as they can and then when they lose, the winner starts from his or her
spot and continues on until everyone has had a head to head battle. They really seemed to
enjoy it and get into it and that was cool to see. They also presented their fakebook page
to the class, all were very well done and quite a few were entertaining and informational so
it made it fun for everyone in the room.
Reflection 5
I literally had a kid today shout out before class, why would I care about a bunch of
dead guys, theyre dead! This class was not the honor class that I usually show up for and
from the first minute they were screaming and hollering. Hearing that was kind of funny in
the sense that it is exactly what we talk about in class, getting the students to be motivated
for history. In another class, I got asked if I partied a lot in college, so it was a whole new
experience today (I told the kid I will not answer that or talk about that). These kids were
not honors students and it was obvious. The lack of respect for authority showed, and the
level of effort on simple tasks were pretty low. They were a lot more talkative and had to
be quieted down much more often. It was nice to go every morning and see all the kids
who wanted to be there and excel in school, and today was more of an eye opening
experience. I was always apart of honors and AP classes, so I never was really exposed to
kids who were suspended for talking back to teachers and this last class was plump full of
them. Like I said, it was eye opening, I will have those good classes that focus and stay on
task and I will have classes that will really make me work every second of the period to
keep them focused and not mouthing off or distracting others.
Task 1

I spent the first two days watching the class and grading these little pamphlets on
the revolutionary war. The pamphlets had to contain a title page and five events either for
or against the patriots or the loyalists. They had to use historical events and provide a
slogan, historical context, and a drawing or image portraying the event. They were thirty
points in all, five points a page and I had to take off for lack of material or image or not
really following the guidelines. It was an honors class so I got to hand out 30s and 29s left
and right, but there were also a few that were graded with 50% and felt bad handing those
out but standards wise, I had to.
Task 2

Of all the days I had showed up, not one of them was just a lecture day with slides
and notes. All the lessons were very interactive, either through technology with the
fakebook pages and their presentations or the hands on lesson with the pamphlets. Mr.
Gomez really provided a variety of options in terms of lesson plans. Even the 306 student,
it was a powerpoint presentation with slides, but the activity with it was interactive with
the students and got them really involved.
Tools

I had collected the worksheet for the primary source analysis on the first day. It was
a sheet for the students fill out with categories for the what was important in the photo,

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what the art piece was portraying, for example, who was in it, what those people looked
like, whether they were demoralized or enthusiastic, land marks, etc.
The fakebook was an ongoing project throughout the time I was in the classroom
and that was a tool in itself. I feel I have explained it to the point of redundancy so no need
to go into what it is again.

Self-Evaluation
During the fakebook creations in the library I was able to walk around and help
out with a few questions and explain some guidelines when necessary. The rest was either
student presentations or tests so I did not really get super involved. There were a few
opportunities that I could have been of more help but I was a bit hesitant so that is an area I
need to work on. Because I did a lot of observing, I did notice a lot about class
management. It was totally dependent on the class, the honors kids were a given a
different tone and more free range to do work on their own or in groups while the classes
with more problem students were given a more rigid lesson with a sharper tone and a
shorter leash when it came to quieting them down and restoring order to the class. There
was also a co-teacher to help with IEP students in the last class of the day and she was a lot
more confrontational than Mr. Gomez, she skipped all niceties and was rather harsh from
the get go when it came to interacting with the students. It was quite a contrast to observe
the two different interactive styles. That I think will help me as a teacher because the more
confrontational teacher got more confrontational responses from the students. Mr. Gomez
found a balance of calmness and sharpness when they were needed. Ive had both types of
teachers but seeing them in the same room almost contradicting each other really gave me
a greater idea as to how students react to each personality.

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