My Field Experience Reflection

Name:
Instructor:
SED 2040 Field Experience Reflection Paper
1. Begin with a brief description of your placement.
Use the first paragraph of your paper for this. Include some brief information about the grade level, the physical appearance of the classroom, and some information about the students' demographics (gender, race, age, etc.). Indicate some of the disabilities that some students have been identified with.
2. Curriculum, Instruction, and Planning
A. Focus on one content area/subject (eg Math, Social Studies, etc) and list instructional strategies you observed during the semester. Be specific and indicate your perceptions of the effectiveness of the strategies in promoting student learning.
• Instructional strategies include "whole class instruction" (lecture/presentation/videos) that can be passive (little student participation) or active (students actively engaged in discussion). Reading-based activities--individual, group, or whole class round robin--can also be passive or more active. Writing-based activities can be rote written "practice" activities--worksheets with one-word or phrase responses, or more complex writing activities--graphic organizers, stories, reports, research papers, lab journals, etc. Did you see theme-based or project-based learning or anything similar? Did you see hands-on science, art, music, etc.?
• What is assessment like?
B. Where does the curriculum come from? Commercial purchased materials or district/school/teacher-designed? If a set commercial curriculum, to what extent does the teacher stick to the curriculum, to what extent does he/she modify it? Do you think the curriculum is effective in promoting student learning?
C. Comment on the planning for instruction you observed, both short term and long term. Is planning day-to day or in advance? Is it inflexible or flexible? Etc.
D. What did you see for differentiated instruction?
3. Management and Environment
Briefly summarize here what you feel you learned from this placement about establishing an effective classroom learning environment and managing it; address behavior management as well. (If you unfortunately learned mostly things not to do, that's okay, reflect from that perspective).
4. Accommodations and Modifications’
List some of the accommodations and modifications provided to students with disabilities/exceptionalities.
5. Concluding reflections: Think about the following questions.
What ideas, techniques, and models will you take away with you?
What have you learned that will make you a better teacher, better able to serve all students particularly students with exceptionalities, in a variety of settings?
Question
Following your fieldwork observation and experience, list one question you have about educating/supporting students with disabilities. This could range from co-teaching, instructional strategies, managing student behavior, students’ rights, IEPs, working with families, etc.