Assignment:
The field experience reflective paper is an in-depth written discussion of your overall field experience. The paper should be reflective in nature and demonstrate your ability to make connections between previous foundations course content (including theoretical concepts and relevant lived experiences) and your field service observations. Your paper should describe the philosophical, historical, economic, and social influences you observe in the classroom. It should build upon this by discussing the cultural and learning differences observed during your experience as well as how the teacher addressed those differences. Finally, you should be able to tie your observations to one or more cognitive learning theories.
The paper should provide a detailed summary of your interactions and observations and how these things related to all that you have learned throughout your Foundations courses. Describe the school structure where you are assigned (i.e. Who is the principal? Are there assistant principals? What are the demographics for the students in your classroom? What kinds of resources are present? etc.). Include appropriate citations as necessary. Again, a good submission will describe the classroom context in detail (What school were you in? What was the grade level and the subject taught? Do not forget to describe the instructional activities you observed and/or were engaged during the sessions and be sure to indicate if learning activities were designed in a manner that was relevant to the subject matter, outlined objectives and goals. Provide your informed description of students' levels of engagement with lessons and activities and indicated if observed lessons and activities were meaningful. In addition, discuss assessment practices and facilitators' monitoring of performance and engagement including reference to any implemented accommodations.
Follow your description with an analysis that points to your ability to identify areas that you determine might be opportunities for improvement as well as areas of strength, related to the teacher's presentations, philosophy and overall engagement. Discuss any correlations between what you observe, your own ideas of teaching and learning in relation to your field experience. You might also include any strategies for how the lessons, activities, classroom management or other aspects could be revised for greater effectiveness. Finally, provide any insights you gained about students, educators, educational processes and yourself as a potential educator.
The paper should be formatted in APA writing style and consists of 6 to 7 pages not including the title, abstract and reference pages. You should employ a minimum of five scholarly references for your submission.