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Advanced Field Experience Reflection

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Reflection is so important and something I truly learned to appreciate in college.

This

reflection discusses my experience with my advanced field placement, the challenges I faced,

and how I overcame them.

Reflection of Advanced Field Experience

Advanced Field has been an incredible experience. When I first found out I was placed in

a Pre-Calculus and Calculus classroom I was very nervous. I didn’t do as well as I would’ve

liked in those classes in college. And I was apprehensive about how I would teach it to students

when I didn’t understand it myself. However, my mentor teacher changed my perspective on

Pre-Calculus and Calculus. I have gotten the chance to get involved in a classroom, build

student-teacher relationships, and even expand my content knowledge.

Getting involved in the classroom was very exciting. I have spent a lot of time working

with kids, but not much of that was in an actual classroom. The students that I worked with made

this adjustment so easy. They were respectful, eager to learn, and supportive. They really helped

me build my confidence. They also offered constructive criticism to help me improve. Once I

was in front of them teaching, everything around me went away and I was truly focused on

helping my students. It was an incredible feeling and helped ease my uncertainty. I appreciated

how respectful my students were. However, because they were so great, I didn’t get the chance to

work on classroom management. This will be the biggest adjustment to my student teaching next

semester since I will be working with middle schoolers.

Building student relationships was a great opportunity. Because my class was only four

students, it was very easy to remember their names and some things about them. I did an

icebreaker with them asking for a fun fact about each of them. The last time I taught them, we

were having a conversation about rice. I had remembered that one of the students said their
favorite food was fried rice and I brought it up. One of their classmates said, “aww you

remembered”. Which was so sweet. It really goes to show how important these relationships are

to the students. Even remembering a simple fact can make a big difference.

Expanding my content knowledge was the biggest growth I had this semester. It was a

very frustrating battle. I needed to spend 2-3 hours a night studying content, not even including

lesson planning. I felt so overwhelmed by this, and it made it hard to get to focus on the actual

teaching. So, I only got to truly teach three times. The way I had learned this content was very

outdated. When I was taught this content, we were given formulas and told to solve. However,

that isn’t how my mentor teacher teaches. Instead, he shows them where the formula comes from

based on their prior knowledge. This made so many concepts click for me that I never really

understood before. This teaching method is so much more effective than I realized. I think

teaching this way also helps the students understand “why” the math works the way it does. For

me, just showing me a shortcut in math is not helpful, if you don’t show me “why” that shortcut

works. Not all students operate the way I do, but for those students who want a deep

understanding, this teaching method is helpful.

In conclusion, I am thankful for the skills I learned in my classroom placement as well as

for having an incredible mentor. Although I was reluctant about the content at first, my mentor

believed in me and made sure I had all of the tools to be successful. I’m confident that if I was to

ever teach this content in the future, with the skills I learned, I would be capable. I’m looking

forward to putting my new skills to use in my student teaching placement next semester.

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