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School Experience
Reflection Journal
EDUC 250-Educational Psychology
NAME: _Kristen Johnson____________
DATE: __4/21/15______________
SCHOOL: __Milan Middle__________
TEACHER: _Multiple__________
GRADE LEVEL: __6th _____________
GENERAL EDUCATION: _x___
SPECIAL EDUCATION:___x___
(Check one)
Once placement is established, you will participate weekly in a 20 hour school experience at an
assigned cooperating school. This journal is a way of keeping track of your experiences for
purposes of developing into a professional teacher.
To fulfill the 20 hour school experience requirement of this course, you will write answers to the
chapter prompt provided. In addition to responding to the topic, please also write a brief
reflection of something that impressed you about your experience of the particular week.
Use this Word document to type your responses and reflection to each prompt. Please use your
discretion and answer the questions when you think you have observed something relevant to the
question. You need to answer half of the questions for each of the two times that the journal is
submitted for grading.
This school experience journal will be handed in two times on dates listed in the calendar of the
syllabus. There 50 possible points for handing in each of the two journal assignments by the
due date. That is a total of 100 points for the entire school experience.
Text: Ormrod, Jeanne Ellis with Brent Jones. Essentials of Educational Psychology: Big
Ideas to Guide Effective Teaching, 4e, with eText. Boston: Pearson, 2015.
Chapter 6-Motivation and Affect
Review the characteristics of learners exhibiting mastery goals and students demonstrating
performance goals on p. 202. Be mindful that students who have mastery goals desire to acquire
additional knowledge or learn new skill for the sake of learning. Students who exhibit
performance goals wish to demonstrate high ability and make a good impression.
How would you categorize many of the students in terms of goals (mastery or performance) in
the tutoring or RTI setting that you regularly visit? What caused you to reach this conclusion?
How might you encourage students to engage in mastery goals?
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Did you see any signs of anxiety or other forms of affect in students in the tutoring or RTI setting
of your school experience? Revisit p. 217 and explain your response.
Response:
Most of the students that I visited with had performance goals rather than mastery goals. They
simply wanted to finish the assignment so that they could move on. It seemed like they just
wanted someone to walk them through each step to make sure that they didn’t get everything
wrong. Most students didn’t try to understand on their own the purpose and logic behind each
assignment.
I was helping one student with his math assignment. He portrayed anxiety not in frustration from
lack of comprehension, but rather in impatience. The assignment was taking too long. He just
wanted to be done with it!
One thing that I found helpful to bring students out of the race-to-the-finish mentality was to ask
questions and have them take the time to think each problem through rather than supplying the
tools every time so that all the student has to do is plug in the numbers. Asking questions to
guide students through an assignment encourages them to stop and think about the assignment
and actually try to understand why a certain procedure must be used.
Reflection:
In the future, I will do my very best to explain an assignment, ask questions about it (to assess
the students’ understanding), and help only when needed. This method uses teacher-constructed
instruction, but also allows students to learn for themselves using essentialism. When students
are at an impasse, the best way to help them is to guide them through the process with questions
that will help them apply concepts that were covered in class to the difficulties that they are
experiencing with the assignment at hand. This procedure engages the students’ logical thinking
skills and encourages careful listening and application skills.
Chapter 7-Personal, Social, and Moral Development
Think about the concept “sense of self” and its implications for teaching and learning. Review
the developmental trends on p. 245 in your textbook. Did you see indications of “sense of self”
affecting learning of the student(s) with whom you worked? Explain.
What effect did “perspective taking” have on the teaching and learning environment? Reread p.
255 in your textbook to understand developmental trends.
If you observed aggressive behavior, explain the type of aggressive behavior that you witnessed.
See textbook p. 254-255 for an explanation.
Response:
Several of the students with whom I worked seemed to either lack self-confidence or act
invulnerable. For instance, one student took everything I said as gospel truth and did precisely
what I instructed without question – which ended in us having to go back and fix a couple
problems that I had misled him with. Another student spoke very bluntly to everyone she came
in contact with and challenged much of what other students said to her. The behavior of the
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second student demonstrated poor perspective-taking ability, misinterpretation of social cues,
and selfishness. These interactions never did reach the point that the situation was disruptive to
other students. In most other groups of students all was rather peaceful in the social aspects as far
as I could tell. Each student treated others the way he or she desired to be treated. This mentality
is a demonstration of good perspective taking and encourages optimum productivity in the
classroom.
Reflection:
Perspective taking seems to be more of an issue with elementary students as morals are being
integrated in class lessons. However, middle school students and even adults don’t have perfect
perspective-taking abilities. Usually our human minds get so wrapped up in self-preserving goals
that we don’t think about how our actions or words are affecting others. As a teacher, it is
important that I explain myself clearly and respect the students in a similar manner to the way I
desire to be respected by them.
Chapter 8-Instructional Strategies
Many instructional strategies are summarized on p. 312 of your textbook. Describe two of the
ones you used for tutoring or RTI in your school placement. Be sure that you give a rationale for
the instructional strategies that you selected to use.
Response:
I used the cooperative learning strategy while helping a small group of students review their
Power Point presentations for a science class. As one student gave her presentation, I encouraged
other students within the group to give her some input. I asked them if there were any areas of a
particular slide that should be modified to make her presentation more understandable or
interesting. The students then proceeded to collaborate and edit each other’s Power Point
presentations accompanied by my guidance and monitoring.
The small-group inquiry learning strategy was used in a science class as well. Students were
working in groups, doing research about a biome of their choice. They used technology to find
specific information about the biome. The tricky part was deciding what materials they would
need to survive a week in that biome. This is where the inquiry strategy came into play. Students
discussed amongst themselves ideas of what the biome might be like. To keep the students on
task and focused on the goal of the assignment, I asked questions about the dangers or physical
setting and resources that students would have to deal with. Students used their own ideas and
the internet information to answer these questions and others. These answers were used to
construct a successful plan of survival in that particular biome.
Reflection:
Different learning strategies have specific purposes and uses. Each strategy is important to
include as the teacher addresses different learning styles and gives the students assignments that
develop particular skills. Varying the types of assignments designed for students allows students
to further develop skills in all areas rather than only becoming an expert in one area. For
instance, it is important that students learn how to efficiently work whether alone or with a
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group. Students who could only perform well alone or only perform well in a group would not
fare well in the work place.
Chapter 9-Strategies for Creating an Effective Classroom Environment
Chapter 9 discusses many ways to enhance the classroom environment. What were some of the
ways that you helped to create an environment that was conducive to learning?
Explain which of the suggestions on p. 347 in your textbook for addressing undesirable
classroom behaviors you utilized in the tutoring or RTI setting of your school experience.
Response:
I could tell some students were talking when they were supposed to be quiet, simply because
there was someone new in the class – me! A couple of students were trying to talk to me as the
teacher was giving instructions on an assignment. In order to discourage this behavior of
ignoring the teacher, I ignored the students and modeled the listening behavior that was expected
of the students. This strategy was usually effective.
I cued one student for talking when he was supposed to be listening to the teacher. I simply
reminded him with a subtle “Shhh.”
Reflection:
In most cases, ignoring the behavior or cuing the student is an effective strategy to deal with
misbehavior. This is largely because most misbehaviors are minor and are not extremely
disruptive to the learning environment for the other students. Promoting self-regulation is
another effective, positive strategy, but it only applies to certain few particular situations, such as
breaking the habit of tapping or chewing a pencil during class.
As a teacher, I will do my best to deal with such behavioral issues quickly and effectively before
they grow to become disruptive to the other students in the class. However, I must not be afraid
to take further, more serious strategies into consideration when the educational environment is
marred.
Chapter 10-Assessent Strategies
What types of assessments did you employ with the student(s)? Did you choose to use different
types of assessments? If you did use a variety of assessment tools, explain why different
assessments were necessary?
Response:
One assessment that I helped students with was a reading comprehension traditional assessment.
It was formative by nature, informing the teacher concerning the areas that needed to be worked
on or reviewed as part of ISTEP preparations.
In addition, I assisted in evaluating a summative performance assessment in a science class. The
students used their knowledge of levers and simple machines to build a catapult and test its
power.
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Different types of assessments are indeed necessary. The traditional assessments provide the data
that a teacher needs to evaluate and have number evidence that a student knows a concept. Still,
performance assessments are needed to demonstrate the student’s ability to apply knowledge that
has been presented in class. Formal assessments help teachers to evaluate what the students
already know and what they are having difficulty understanding. Summative assessments allow a
teacher to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching strategies used when combined with the
students’ learning style.
Reflection:
There are reasons and benefits behind each type of assessment, both for the teacher and for the
students. My experience tutoring helped me to see the value of a number of different types of
assessments. As a teacher, I will include a variety of both formative and summative assessments
of different forms so that each student’s progress is accurately recorded and demonstrated.
Final Reflection:
Take some time to think about your responses and reflections in this journal. Respond to the
following questions.
1) In terms of the major concepts presented in this class, how do you think your school
experience and reflections on it has helped prepare you for classroom responsibilities as a
teacher?
The concepts presented in this class encouraged me to start thinking about various
strategies, learning styles, and assessments before and during my tutoring sessions. It
helped me to be more observant of the students rather than just recording everything the
teacher did. The class served as a good review and in-depth study of helpful teaching
tactics, many of which were used during my tutoring hours. Tutoring gave me an
opportunity to put to practice the concepts and strategies that I had learned about in all
my education classes.
2) Briefly sum the impact that this school experience has had on your professional
aspirations. You will not be penalized for constructive criticism.
For almost a year, I was determined to be a high school English teacher. Upon tutoring in
middle school, I have decided that I like working with 6th grade students better. My grade
preference is not the only thing that changed. Through this tutoring experience I gained
more insight concerning time management and application of various teaching strategies.
The experiences that I had with students helped me to put to the test some of the tactics,
disciplines, and methods that I had been learning about these past couple years. Working
with the students one-on-one was an incredible opportunity that once again assured me of
my love for teaching!