Reflection on fieldwork

Fieldwork provided me with an experience unlike any other. I got the chance to see what my strengths and weaknesses are as well as those of my peers. By seeing this, I thought of ways I could build on my strengths and fix my weaknesses. Fieldwork gives us teacher candidates the chance to see students grow, get comfortable with the process of making lesson plans and put our skills to the test. 

Before beginning our lessons the students took a pretest. The purpose of the pretest is to see where the students currently stand with the material. It is a way for teachers to be able to see what students know and what they do not know. The pretest is a form of assessment but there are many other forms that teachers use during their lessons. A pretest is a formal assessment. It was very helpful to myself and my colleagues to look at before we began teaching. After going over the assessments one can properly give feedback to the students which is incredibly important. Researchers (e.g., Black & Wiliam, 1998, Sadler, 1989), have identified elements of the formative assessment process. The elements are: Identifying the gap, feedback, learning progression and involving students in building their own knowledge. These are essential elements because they are the best way to get the most out of assessments. Formative assessments with appropriate feedback is so powerful and can help students achieve success (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). When we gave the pretest to the class, many of them were unaware of some aspects of our lesson such as who can vote. By the end of our first lesson, students were able to successfully answer four questions that went along with our lesson of choosing a country's leaders. But, of course as expected, not every student fully grasped the lesson by the end of one days teaching. That is why it is also important to incorporate and let the lessons build off of each other. Students should always be revisiting past knowledge they learned. Here are some students work; those who understood right away and those who are on their way to the finish line! 

There are other ways to assess students informally during lessons. We used many of these informal methods doing our lessons. For example, when a student answered a question I would ask the students who agree to put their thumbs up and those who disagree to put a thumbs down. This was a quick way to see what the students were thinking. I used this several times during the three lessons.

Teaching is an ongoing process. Teachers are constantly building their knowledge and developing certain skills to become the best teachers. While teaching social studies, you have to be secure with your content knowledge as well as your educational contexts. This can include all information related to the content of social studies, and knowing classroom management and grouping etc. Pedagogical content knowledge is gained through experiences and preparation on the teachers end. I think that the instructional methods that the students benefited from the most were the direct and inquiry. During the direct, which was just lecture, the students were fully engaged in the lesson and were paying close attention. Through the use of repetition in the direct lesson it allowed for the students to really remember the information. Another benefit of a direct lesson is that it is very structured. The inquiry method was good as well because it allowed for more independence to fall within the individual students. All the students took an active role to investigate. I think that students learn better when they are actively participating. 

In order to support collaboration within the classroom I think it is important to provide lessons where students work together. By having students work together it increases their social skills and they learn how to be a group member. It is important that students learn to work together toward the same goal. A cooperative lesson helps students to realize their individual differences and at the same time taking responsibility within the group. The best way to implement cooperative learning is making sure that all students within groups have their own responsibilities as well as positive interdependence and social skills.  
The best ways to support inquiry learning within the classroom is by providing activities that foster exploration. Inquiry learning helps to develop critical thinking and gives students the chance for a reflection. Having students reflect is really important because it invites students to think about their thinking, processes and skills. 

In order to engage and support all learners within the classroom the content learned should be relevant and flexible. What works for one student may not work for another. If students can create a bond or relate to the information, they may be more engaged and involved. Another way that would be really helpful is by teaching students to self monitor. Self monitoring is a resourceful tool that can help students take control of their behavior and in return become more engaged with the lessons.