Field Experience Reflection

I conducted my ten hours of Field Experience at Lane Tech High School, which is the high school that I attended as a student. The head of the Social Science Department, Mr. Carity, who was also my Honors Economics teacher when I was a junior, was nice enough to set up a schedule for me that involved me observing a variety of social science classes. More specifically, I observed multiple AP Psychology sections, World History, Honors U.S. History, Honors Civics, and AP Human Geography. In doing this, I observed ten different teachers: Ms. Nester, Ms. Shannon, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Ms. Smith, Mr. Parsons, Ms. McMahon, Mr. Ochsenhaut, Ms. McKnight, Mr. Tarbhai, and Ms. Spence. Although I greatly enjoyed observing all ten sections, some of these classes -- due to an approaching Thanksgiving -- involved students taking tests or doing work on computers, which yield limited or no discussion regarding disciplinary practices in those classes specifically. 

This being said, I definitely observed disciplinary practices being observed in some of the classes that I observed. One of these classes was Mr. Fitzpatrick's history course. Here, students were asked to consider how causes of the British industrial revolution actually lead to the industrial revolution. For example, the causes were listed on the left side of the table (i.e., The Agricultural Revolution, population growth, demand, government, coal, government policies, etc.), and each cause was accompanied by an empty space where students would answer the question "Why did it cause an industrial revolution?" The next part of the activity involved students ranking the causes in terms of their importance, and then categorizing them into specific themes. Apart from being a really interactive and useful way to learn about the industrial revolution, this activity allowed students to engage in contextualization, an important disciplinary practice in history. Here, students utilized background knowledge of these different causes and of the industrial revolution itself to infer why these causes resulted in the industrial revolution. They also contextualized in the colloquial sense of the word by putting the industrial revolution into the context of British history (i.e., The Glorious Revolution, the cottage industry, etc.), which is also important in understanding why a historical event occurred and what preceding events lead up to it.

Although I did not observe discipline-specific literacy practices in the other classes, I still observed practices that supported disciplinary inquiry. For example, in Ms. McKnight's class, students were given an article about the Great Migration, which included the subheadings: Context and Causes of the Great Migration, Did you know?, Life for Migrants in the City, and the Impact of the Great Migration. Students were asked to discuss the article in groups with each other regarding their prior knowledge of the Great Migration, but also what the article conveyed about it. This activity served as an effective introduction to the Great Migration, especially in terms of activating prior knowledge that students have regarding this event. Additionally, in Mr. Tarbhai's class, students role played the Cherokee Nation v. Georgia Supreme Court case of 1831, which was useful in that it allowed students to model historical figures and their ideologies, which can increase their understanding of their viewpoints in a very hands-on and interactive way. All in all, the observations that I conducted at Lane were very insightful, especially when looking at them through the lens of an aspiring expert in the social science discipline.