Cynthia Berg

Dr. Ellis
EDUC 2301.200
12/08/2015
Reflections on Field Experience
This semester marks my second observation in the public school field. I observed Mrs.
Lockridges teaching methods at Honey Grove High School in the subjects of English and
Language Arts. I was also fortunate to observe Mrs. Lockridge teach the Honey Grove Drama
class. I enjoyed both very much. Mrs. Lockridge teaches the freshman and junior classes. She
teaches both the regular and the pre-advanced levels of these grades.
I sat in on a couple of Mrs. Lockridges classes the previous school year and was
surprised at how different this student body was from last year. This years student body was
very well behaved and actively engaged in their learning process as compared to last years
students who were noisy and disrespectful. I learned several valuable lessons in observing her
class. I observed first-hand what teachers mean when they talk about a good and bad batch of
students. While teachers do not believe that students are completely unteachable, there are
groups of students that present more challenges than others. I also learned that teachers will
encounter different variables in each years student body. But perhaps the best lesson I learned
from Mrs. Lockridge was how to keep my composure. I watched her handle two different types
of student bodies with the same level of care and professionalism for their education.

Some of the techniques that I observed and plan to implement in my classroom are the
Round Robin technique, the Loop Game and different ways for presenting vocabulary words. The
Round Robin I had observed last year and I noticed that students in all grades enjoy this learning
technique. The students sit in a circle and take turns discussing their reading assignments and
current events. All are encouraged to participate and there are no wrong answers. The Loop
Game I had not seen before but enjoyed it very much. Students are given a card with a
description of one of their assigned readings character and the name of another. One student
volunteers to go first and reads his description and another student who has that characters name
calls out and then reads his description and so on, thus creating a loop that can be started with
any character from their reading assignments. The students enjoyed this game and it connected
the events and characters in their assigned reading that helped them remember it better.
The vocabulary techniques Mrs. Lockridge uses are visualization (drawing a picture of
the word), pronunciation of the word, the correct definition of a word and the correct part of
speech that the word holds in a sentence. The students have notebooks that they record all of this
information in. This is an effective tool in teaching vocabulary words. I feel like the different
ways of presenting the words encompasses several different learning styles and reaches each of
the students in some way. I very much like this technique and plan to use it.
I was also able to observe Mrs. Lockridge teach the drama class. I enjoyed watching the
students draw both a character and a way of presenting that character from a hat. The students
then presented their characters both in teams and as individuals. It was fun to watch students
enjoy their learning process.

Finally, I just loved my teaching experience. It reaffirmed to me that I am making the

right decision for my career path. I learned some more techniques that I plan to implement in my
classroom and learned that nothing about teaching can be taken for granted. I am learning that
while teaching has challenges, the benefits of being part of leading and influencing young lives
in a positive direction far outweigh the challenges.