Field Experience Week 6

My week six field experience went well. Kasie and I got a lot more time to talk with our teacher about how he teaches, the resources he uses, how he improves his teaching, etc. It was nice to have time to talk to him in a professional manner about the field we will be going into in our future. He talked about his past teaching experience, how it has changed, what he does to be a better teacher, the collaboration he uses in his PLN, and just generally about the students. We asked him if he teaches more to the test and standards or for college. He admitted it is more to the test and standards based on the type of kids he has in the classroom. I know this is not what we are taught at IU and I do not want to teach this way, however I can see where he and his colleagues are coming from. Many of them are going to be paid on performance based salary. Teaching kids to the test and the standards has major improvements in their test scores. It is sad that these students are not getting the type of in-depth understanding and instruction that could be useful to them, however it seems that they have been conditioned in these classes to be taught the test and regurgitate information. I know this will not help them in the secondary education career of their lives and that is what they are missing out on.

Kasie and I also were able to talk to some of the students about their college plans. We were surprised to see how many students were applying to colleges and looking forward to going to a big college. However, many of them were not sure how they were going to pay for school at the collegiate level. We talked with them about school loans and applying for scholarships. Unfortunately, many of the students have grand plans to attend high level colleges and I am not sure they will be admitted. Many of them believe that by being a minority it will be way easier for them to gain entrance, however their GPA and test scores are not there to put them in these institutions. I think most of the kids in the classes could definitely go to college, a lot of them probably in a junior college or community college format. We did talk to a few students going to IU and even one student who is taking IU classes through IUPUI next semester. It was great to see some students with such high goals in their future.

Finally Kasie and I got to lead the Government classes in a review for their test. We used what the teacher had, which was basically just a powerpoint with questions from the test but the students were able to use clickers which they enjoyed. The lesson went well and why it is not exactly how I would have done it, the students were able to review for the test somewhat effectively.