Field Experience Reflection

I fulfilled my observation hours at two high schools: a small private high school on the Southwest side of the city and a public, select-enrollment school on the North side of the city. These two schools both offered me insight into the norms and practices of history albeit in very different ways.

At the private school, I observed much less implementation of the norms and practices we learned about. This school focused much more on the "traditional" type of learning where teachers talked to the students with notes on the projector while the students took notes. I did see some implementation of some of the basics we discussed where teachers gave out guided note taking hand outs along with their notes, however this seemed to be the most they did to address different learners and learning styles. I was kind of disappointed in these field experience hours because I didn't get to see the proper implementation of what I learned about and hoped to see in real life. One class did utilize different technological literacies as we have discussed however it was limited and did not seem to be intended to enhance the lesson.

The public school I observed at was a much better experience. I saw firsthand a handful of the ideas we have discussed implemented in the classroom. In one class, think-pair-share was used. I walked around and observed with the teacher how the students were doing and the conversations seemed to highlight that the students were comprehending. Furthermore, another teacher I observed at this school used a guided reading approach while analyzing a historical document. This seemed to help the students as after this, they worked in small groups and I observed their discussions. I did not hear any students talk about not understanding the reading so it seemed to be effective. For history specific practices, the same teacher had students discuss the sourcing and biases of the historical document studied. This is a very specific aspect of history as studying this part of documents assists in further understanding it. Seeing this practice utilized in a high school classroom was surprising for me since I did not experience this in depth until college.

Both experiences helped me shape understanding of how to implement the practices we have learned about in the classrooms. Although one school did not offer these to the level I had hoped, it did paint for me more of a picture of what classrooms are like when these kinds of practices are not implemented. My other experience was much better and evidenced for me how student learning can work when these practices ARE implemented. It seemed the public school was much better equipped to implement these literacy practices. It also seemed that they yielded better results however the private school classes didn't really offer much room for students to show off their learning throughout the class period.