Observations

From my field experience in an 8th grade English/Literature classroom, I saw various concepts related to learning in action:

• Collaborative learning: the students worked on a group project with 3-4 people to a group. Each group had to choose a short film they wanted to analyze and find the theme of it. Each of the group members had to work together taking on different tasks and making different contributions, so that they could analyze and find the theme. The final goal of this project was to produce a poster that illustrated how the theme was developed, by incorporating specific parts of the story.

• Learning About Learning: the students had a class period where they had to do an on-demand writing assignment. Up until this class period, the students had worked on other small writing assignments to help them become better writers such as their grammar and developing their thesis. A few days after their on-demand writing assignment, the teacher graded it and returned it to the students. The teacher also gave them a worksheet to fill out so that they could reflect on their grade and how they can improve their writing in the future. This process of reflection got the students to think and learn about their own learning (metacognition) and identify the steps they needed to improve on for the future. 

• Contextual Theory: the classroom that I was in relied heavily on technology. This means that technology served as a context. Most of the students reading assignments were on their Chromebooks. These reading assignments were personalized to their reading levels. The reading assignments were assigned to them weekly and they had to complete them by the end of the week. Additionally, for other assignments in the class, they were able to collaborate with students or even the teacher. The benefit of being able to collaborate easily through technology is seen as one of the primary benefits of digital technologies as contexts (Ormrod, 2020, p. 298). 

• Behaviorism: many of the students in the classroom would often be disrespectful towards the teacher or would not listen. Oftentimes, the disrespect would be in the form of talking back or not listening. There were a few times where my teacher would have to give the students warnings and tell them it was not okay to talk like that. There was one instance where a student was being very disrespectful towards the teacher and the teacher had to take the student out to the hallway to speak to them in private. In this case, it was appropriate for the teacher to take the student to the hallway to speak to them in private, so that the student was not embarrassed in front of the class (Ormrod, 2020, p. 352). By talking to the student in private, the teacher was addressing the behavior and was appropriately punishing the student. 

My field experience took place in a 1st grade classroom, where it is especially important to employ effective teaching strategies as kids are still at the age where they are learning how to learn. I observed the following aspects of learning in my field experience: 

• Learning Model Phase 3 (Focus on New Learning): When introducing an assignment, the teacher almost always modeled the steps for students. This is mentioned as a classroom strategy to help the visual learning aspect of our brains, which process information better when they are given both verbal and visual presentations. By supporting visual learning, this helps students see what mastery of the desired knowledge/skills actually looks like – increasing their ability to focus on the task while it is in their working memory  (Goodwin, Gibson, & Rouleau, 2020, p. 13).

• Active Learning:  At the first grade level, I observed that it was especially important to engage students in the material and make sure they were motivated to learn; otherwise, it was very hard to keep students focused and on task. To accomplish this goal of creating an environment that encourages active learning processes, the teacher often used techniques such as incorporating technology or using simulations. This was extremely effective at keeping students engaged and even made the process of learning fun for most of the kids.

• Behaviorism:  I noticed many different forms of operant conditioning in my classroom. In terms of punishment, the teacher employed both negative punishment – like having a student sit alone at their desk with their head down after misbehaving, essentially a time-out – and positive punishment – requiring students who were especially disruptive to walk laps during recess. There was also a lot of reinforcement used: negative reinforcement – like removing the Voice Level 0 rule if the students went 5 minutes without talking out – and positive reinforcement as well – mostly in the form of praise and positive feedback.

• Social Cognitive Theory: I definitely saw the assumptions of social cognitive theory at work in my classroom, especially the importance of learning by observation. The textbook’s educational implication for this assumption is to “help students acquire new behaviors more quickly by demonstrating those behaviors yourself” (Ormrod, 2020, p. 364). The teacher was very cognizant of the fact that many kids needed to see a demonstration of the activity/assignment etc. before they were able to feel confident enough to attempt it themselves. The use of materials like document cameras and smart boards made it easier for the teacher to model skills in a way that all students could observe.

My field experience took place in Mrs.Sanderlin's third grade classroom. These students were nothing short of wonderful, and I enjoyed my time in their classroom. On that note, there were many different things I learned throughout my time observing, such as, how important supporting effective learning for all students is, and also how their age, development, etc. play a role in what we've discussed today. I observed these aspects throughout my observation:

• Collaborative Learning:   My third grade students participated in many collaborative activities with each other. Since my classroom is heavily focused in math and science, they really enjoyed challenging each other in math games on their computers. The instructor would ask them to pair up and think of ways they can collectively get higher and higher scores. 

• Active Learning: Active learning is extremely crucial for elementary students because not only is it important for their development, but it is also important to explore their creativity. When students would find a certain topic they were particually interested in, they were more motivated to not only complete the task, but also find different loop-holes and tricks to gather their necessary solutions. 

• Learner Driven: My third grade students were very eager to learn, but they were very driven to discover new ways of learning that works best for them. " By incorporating autonomy into the classroom, students have some level of control of what is learning or how things are learned"(Ferlazzo, 2023). This stuck out to me because it truly embodies what my third graders are going through development wise. They are becoming more independent and enjoy getting to complete activities on their own. Although they do love group work, they also love their silent, individual work time so they can reflect on their growth and learning development! The teacher I observed for also heavily encouraged quiet, individual time. 

• Practice and Reflect: Students were encouraged to retreieve the previous lesson to the next weeks lesson and make connections. They had to be able to remember what was learned last week, weither it was multiplication, different types of weather, or basic grammar. They were encouraged to take time within the lesson and reflect on what has been learned, and practice it over and over until they got it right. Once they remembered and got it right, they were able to move to the next lesson. Practicing and reflecting at an early age challeneged the third graders to really use their long-term memory and apply it to their weekly lessons so that they will continue to have valuable infornmation stored!