My Field Experience

My Field Experience

1.       How many hours did you complete?

a.       I completed 6 hours or 360 minutes of field experience for this class.

2.       In a short paragraph or bulleted list, how did you spend your time?

a.       I spent 1 hour of my time observing a fellow teacher teach a synthesizing lesson using the book The Great Kapok Tree.

b.      I spent 2 hours of my time collaborating with my SMLS, Reading Coach and one representative from each grade level planning an in-house reading training for our staff and creating a grade level book list for each grade level to use for standards/skills and thinking strategies.

c.       I spent 4 hours going to three different story times at my local public library. I went to two short story times for younger kids and then I went to one Waggin’ Tales story time (Which was my favorite!) I also got to talk during this time with the children’s librarian there and just what kinds of things they have to help classroom teachers and what they offer to student’s to get them involved.

3.       How did the experience help you to strengthen at least one Kentucky Teacher Standard? (Be sure to name the standard)

a.       I think these field experience hours definitely helped me improve on Kentucky Teacher Standard 8: The teacher collaborates with colleagues, parents, and others.  Working on planning that training and collaborating to create that booklist was an awesome experience. We had to decide as a group what was most important and how to go about conveying that information to our staff. I am truly blessed to work in a great school and we definitely work as a team. When creating the booklists, we took ideas from the SLMS, Reading Coach and books that we as teachers had used and love, and we had to then sit down and figure which grade levels could use which books and if there was overlap. Also, if there was, we had to decide which books could be used for what skills and so forth. We were having a lot of overlap in trade books at various levels and teachers were planning lessons with books to find the kids had read them the previous year and done almost the same lesson on schema and text connections. So we sat down and hashed it all out! Not only did I get exposed to even more great literature through this, I was very proud to be part of that group that was given the trust to put that all together.  Also, I didn’t really count this as part of my field hours, but I talk and collaborate with my librarian all the time. I totally understood when you were talking about being friends with the librarian, using their resources and collaborating with them and they will be more likely to get you what you need! I am that person! Last year, I collaborated with my librarian and we got the SLMS/Teacher grant for the KBA books (a whole set of last year’s KBA books sit in my room J ) I always have at least 50 books checked out to me I swear, I’m always going in there for help and I work with her ALL the time! I know her job goes far beyond checking out books and I love collaborating with her. She is an invaluable resource.

4.       Talk a little about one thing you learned because of this field experience.

a.       When going to the public library for story times, I talked with the children’s librarian there. She talked to me about different ways the public library can help me as a classroom teacher! One thing that I had NO idea about was the fact that I can e-mail her a topic, say, life cycles, about a week before I begin my unit. She will pull up to 50 books about life cycles, check them out to me, put them in a basket, and then all I have to do is come pick them up! I was just sitting there going, “Think of all the time I will save not on the computer catalog!!!” I wanted to seriously hug her! If I would have never talked to her because of these field hours, I would have never known! I can’t wait to use this starting in the fall! I already told her our first unit and she put it in the calendar to pull the books for me! What a great and handy tool for teachers! I’m tempted not to tell anyone so I can take full advantage (haha) but I am sure I’ll share the tip!