Like the previous experiences before the question that i had formulated before going in is how will this school be similar to the high school for teaching. To be more specific, will this school with grades 5-8 be similar to the way a high school is taught. One of the things i noticed upon entering the classroom was the set up of the desks which seems to very a lot based on the teachers preference. i find this to be very important to see how the teacher likes to teach and operate their classroom in their own way. The desks were unique in this school because they were split into rows and columns facing into the center of the room so 3-4 columns would be facing north and 3-4 columns would be facing south so that all students would look at the teacher who would walk in the middle to attract everyone's attention.
Something i found interesting about this experience was that the students were able to use laptop computers while in class to do research. This was not the case when i was in elementary school and it was extremely rare in my high school (although that has changed now and the students in my high school can use them when they please). It was a shock to me because students were using them in the 5th grade class which we were only able to see for a few minutes before having to go to the 8th grade classroom.
Having a discussion with the teacher in the 8th grade class, she informed us that things were constantly changing and evolving in the way she would have to teach, she would have to keep updating to meet the standards of the state. The teacher then told us that there were different ways to get the students ready for the test and they could essentially take more time on some subjects and choose to spend less time on others. An example would be studying 20th century America and one teacher focusing more on WW I and a different teacher focusing more on WW II. As long as both teachers have their students efficient in the history overall then it would be alright and they would have a small limit of freedom. She also told us that we should do something that really stuck and that was that we needed to be over prepared and always have a plan b in case something were to go wrong in class. She also told us that she saved copies of lesson plans on paper and as well as online to go back to look at.
This field experience was a good one because the teacher was trying to be as helpful as possible and was able to tell all of us a lot of what she had gathered over the years and gave us the best advice she could. It was nice to see that she was looking out for us and was trying to help all of us.
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