Rodriguez Campos 1

Lizbeth Rodriguez Campos

Professor Evita Medina

EDUC 1301 42408

24 April 2021

Field Experience Part I

The Covid-19 pandemic has created some limitations for this Spring 2021 semester,

which is why I chose to do video observations to keep others and myself safe. The two

classrooms that I observed were Ms. Chandler’s 5th grade English Language Arts class and Ms.

Bryant’s 2nd grade Engineering class. During my observations, I noticed that both teachers had a

similar approach to teaching, while also some differences, both teachers made sure to actively

engage their students throughout the lesson by asking questions and allowing them to express

their thoughts. However, Ms. Chandler gave a clearer connection to the real world during her

lesson, she explained that “today’s lesson” is something that the students “see every single day,”

while Ms. Bryant’s lesson was something that they will complete in real life, but that is not

exactly relatable to the everyday life of a student. Nevertheless, I enjoyed observing both

classrooms and look forward to writing about my experiences.

5th GRADE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

The first classroom I observed was Ms. Chandler’s 5th grade English Language Arts class

at Sandhill Elementary. Her lesson revolved around the topic of understanding bullying, she used

videos, informational texts, the novel Wonder, and even songs to help her students develop a

better understanding of bullying and its causes. Ms. Chandler introduced the unit by first making

sure her students knew that the topic was something that students deal with every day, making it

relatable. She used images of people with different facial expression and asked her students to

describe what they might be thinking to introduce them to point of view.

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Ms. Chandler had two essential questions for the class’ lesson: “is it better to fit in or

stand out?” and “how does point of view influence a character’s description of an event?” Both

questions allow students to understand how they can implement different literary concepts in

their writing to help the reader understand what it is they want to say, for example, emotions,

physical characteristics, feelings, the environment, etc. The question about fitting in encourages

students to make a definition of what it means to stand out or fit in and to be able to explain their

point to others so they understand.

It is often difficult to keep fifth-grade students interested in the topic if they are not

offered interesting and fun activities to keep them engaged, Ms. Chandler made an excellent job

keeping her students engaged and interested. To help with the introduction, Ms. Chandler asked

the class to define what it means to fit in and to stand out in their own ways, she lets them

express their thoughts and share with the class. When learning a new vocabulary word Ms.

Chandler always asked the class what they thought the word meant, she asked the students what

they thought the definition of a “scar” was, and when someone was stuck or close to the answer,

she encouraged the others to help, implementing teamwork in the class.

A fun activity that she did was a skit, she exited the classroom and returned “upset,” she

screamed at her students and told them they would not be getting recess for the rest of the year,

she pretended to be angry to help her class visualize different emotions. After the skit, she asked

the class to describe her using descriptive words, the purpose of this was to help her students use

better and more complex sentences to describe someone or something, focusing on thoughts and

emotions. As some students are visual learners, Ms. Chandler gave her students a paper with a

person figure on it and asked them to draw scars they have on their bodies on the little person on

the paper, then to share with their tables how they got those scars, this activity helped the visual
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learners better understand that scars can be on any part of the body. Throughout the lesson, Ms.

Chandler made sure to give the class time to talk amongst their tables to help one another

understand something or get missing information from their notes. Activities like these are

important because they build up a student’s social and communication skills, which are

important in the real world.

The activities on scars help build some background which is essential for every lesson.

Building background on scars is important because it helps students know what a scar is, how it

can happen, and how common it is, which could prevent those students from bullying others for

visible scars they might have. It is an integral part of every lesson to build background on the

topic to avoid confusion in the students. For example, if I were to be teaching my students about

space, spaceships, satellites, and NASA, I would not start by making them draw a spaceship

when they might not even know what a spaceship is! First, one must make sure that the students

know what the topic is and what it means, instead of jumping straight into the activity, I would

explain to them what a spaceship does, who controls it, how it is controlled, how it gets to space,

how it floats, and most importantly, how it looks, that way they will have an idea on how to draw

it.

2nd GRADE ENGINEERING DESIGN

The second class I observed was Ms. Bryant’s 2nd grade Engineering Design class at

Drew Charter School. Her lesson revolved around building a useful and efficient garden bench

for the school’s Tinker Yard. Some categories in the lesson include: using and identifying tools

and their purpose, understanding how to design a build, and understanding the importance of

doing research and communicating with others. I enjoyed watching Ms. Bryant’s lesson, she

constantly asked her students questions and let them speak, she had everyone’s constant

attention, including mine. I was intrigued by her lesson, even though I was not a student in the
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class, I wanted to constantly pay attention because of how fun Ms. Bryant was making the

lesson. Her lesson structure was easy to follow and engaging. I see myself using a lesson plan

similar to hers, she went into detail breaking down what she was to do in the classroom and what

was expected of students, she made it seem fun and simple, I loved it!

Ms. Bryant started the lesson by introducing the goal to the students: to build a garden

bench to store all the garden supplies. She said that the “garden supplies are spread all over the

Tinker Yard” and that it will be beneficial to everyone if they had somewhere to keep their

supplies nice and tidy. She then made the students read questions that will get them thinking

about what they will be doing. Although her class is Engineering Design, Ms. Bryant implements

other subjects in her lessons, she says she looks “at the standards they’re covering in math,

science, social studies, and language arts… and make sure that I am helping with those content

areas in this particular class.” Every time Ms. Bryant asked her students to read the questions on

the board they were improving their literary and verbal skills. She also addresses many

intelligences, Verbal Intelligence being one of them, she spoke throughout the entire lesson and

allowed students to speak.

After making the starting questions, Ms. Bryant gave the class a paper with a picture of a

small section of the Tinker Yard, which would be where their garden bench will be placed. Mr.

Mather, a teaching artist who was helping with the lesson for the day, told the students to flip

over their papers and draw a rectangle in the back, slowly he created a window showing a

vanishing point, he described what every step of the process meant or represented, all to help the

students learn to draw something in perspective. He then guided them through building a plan for

their garden bench using perspective. This entire process implemented another subject in the

class, art.
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Ms. Bryant then used a physical equilateral triangle that students could see up close, she

asked them to describe what they already knew about triangles and find the differences in

triangles she drew on the board, addressing Logical Intelligence. She then proceeded to use math

in her lesson by showing her students where the angles in a triangle are and how to calculate an

angle when given two other angles, implementing geometry. She turned back to the equilateral

triangle and asked her class to identify what is “unique” about said triangle.

The lesson then went “hands-on,” which addressed Kinesthetic Intelligence, Ms. Bryant

asked the class to sit before going out to the Tinker Yard, and to identify what places would

make a good place to put their garden bench in, although it might not seem like it, the

observation part of this process is from the Science Method, so once again, Ms. Bryant

implemented other subjects into the lesson. Once in the Tinker Yard, Ms. Bryant and Mr. Mather

split the class into groups that would take on different tasks. Ms. Bryant explained to her group

how to use a drill and what the different parts of it were named and what they do. She then

allowed everyone in the group to take a turn using the drill, with her help of course.

One of the students immediately got a big smile on his face after his turn with the drill,

which made me happy. That is one of the many intrinsic rewards a teacher gets from her

students. I am sure that some of Ms. Bryant’s and Mr. Mather’s intrinsic rewards were

happiness, satisfaction, and proudness because I felt those even though I was not even there! I

felt proud of the students for being able to work together enthusiastically without getting upset

with one another. I think that I will feel all three of these intrinsic rewards as a teacher. I often

find happiness in small things, including seeing other people happy or having fun, so I will most

definitely feel happy around my future students. Also, I get a sense of satisfaction when I

complete something, whether it be work or helping someone, so I am sure I will feel satisfied
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after all my students understand a lesson, I will be especially proud. I will be proud of any small

accomplishments my students do because a small accomplishment is a big step to success.

Returning to Ms. Bryant’s lesson, after seeing the students work on the garden bench the

video showed Mr. Mather with his group, he was explaining to them that they were going to film

an instructional video about the Tinker Yard using vocabulary words. While the students build

their tipi, he encouraged them to ask for help when they needed it and to communicate with each

other. He paused the filming and told the students that they were doing a good job and that he

liked what they were doing, something that all children need, encouragement and praise, it is

important to let students know that they are doing a good job. He also tells them that they should

walk around their build and reassess what they are doing and check for any modifications that

could improve the build. By using words like “reengineering” Mr. Mather was able to show the

students that the process they were doing is also used by professionals in real-life situations. At

the end of the video, Ms. Bryant congratulated the class on their accomplishments and let them

know they did a good job.

Ms. Bryant used an interdisciplinary curriculum that benefits her students, they were all

able to learn more than one thing on more than one subject at the same time. Reading, math, art,

and science were all used in her lesson, which will help her students implement these subjects

simultaneously in real-life situations. Like in baking a cake, for example, one must read the

instructions (ELA), measure the ingredients (Math), mix the ingredients which makes a

homogenous mixture (Science), and sometimes recipes might have background information on

the history of the recipes which would implement Social Studies.

Overall, Ms. Bryant’s class was very fun and engaging, one of the extrinsic rewards that

came out of the lesson is the garden bench free to use by everyone, it was a beautiful outcome as
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well. There were two major school purposes represented in Ms. Bryant’s lesson, Intellectual and

Social. Intellectual school purpose was represented when the students were taught about shapes,

triangles, and angles and when they were reading the questions at the beginning of the lesson.

Social school purpose was represented when the students were talking amongst each other

communicating what they wanted to do for their build and how they could adjust it. The different

intelligences Ms. Bryant included in her lesson were important as they included different ways

her students could learn.

I will address my students’ different intelligences and learning styles by making sure I

implement a little bit of everything in my lessons. For example, for verbal intelligence, I can

make my students talk about the lesson’s topic with their group or write a paragraph on it, for

logical intelligence I can give them a scenario about something and make them infer what would

happen if something else were to happen, and so on. I want every single one of my students to

feel heard and understood and comfortable to ask questions when confused. I will ask them for

suggestions on how they think I can modify my classroom and teaching to best fit their learning

style. It might be a challenge, especially in the beginning when I would not know my student’s

learning styles yet, but I think that after some time with them I will be able to modify my

teaching to help them learn better.

I enjoyed observing Ms. Chandler’s and Ms. Bryant’s classrooms, I learned a lot about

engaging students and encouraging them to have fun. Seeing other teachers in action makes it

seem like teaching is easy, although I know very well that is not the case, at least not always. I

look forward to seeing how other teachers get their lessons across to students without losing their

interest.