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Portfolio Reflection

Field work allowed me to integrate my academic studies into my career

goals. It provided me with practical field work experience while I was in the
classroom. It will contribute to improve my personal development in preparation
for my teaching career. Field work gave me guide and control experience with
professional in the elementary school. It expanded my personal and professional
growth opportunities, challenging my attitudes while I was observing. It gave me
information, tools that complement classroom study, assist in the development
of pedagogical skill, knowledge and dispositions necessary for effective teaching.
Conflicting opinions and points of view are pertained to licensure issues,
there are different arguments about licensure, but the important point here is
that maybe what your circumstances, as well, as the availability of quality
program in your state work for you, may not work for someone else. In order to
work in their occupation, a teacher has to be licensed, which a state evaluates the
credentials knowledge and skills, and if a teacher is morally fit to work with
young people. Teachers have gotten intensive in keeping up with the standard,
the pressure of testing, crowed schedules, ranging from individual stress levels to
work-life balance struggles. For example, they face disinterested and unruly
students, irresponsible parents, poorly run and disorderly schools that arent
conducive to teaching and learning, working conditions that require so many
nonteaching duties that they have insufficient time for planning and virtually no
time for themselves, isolation and loneliness. So like others topics licensure has
its own controversial issues too.
Field experience is going to influence my philosophy of teaching because
it will reflect my academic preparation, my personal values and my beliefs.
Creating a range of experience will shape my process of learning and growth as a

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teacher. Continually maintaining a perspective on practicing my philosophy of
teaching over time will give me more confidence, it will become a navigation tool
in my career. Exploring and recreating will be more than an intellectual exercise
done in a classroom to prepare students to get the knowledge and skills that are
needed to contribute to the creation of a greater society.
Field experience is going to influence my classroom management
philosophy, because it will allow me to observe techniques and strategies of
classroom management that will help me reflect on my own classroom
management philosophy. Teachers cannot teach and students cannot learn if a
classroom is out of control. Classroom management is one that promotes
student safety, orderly, and affection for learning, because students learning are
the most important part in managing student behavior. So my classroom
management is one of the biggest essential teaching skills, that they are
acquired with field experience.
This field experience helped me to explore in a 2ed grade classroom,
about how huge and important is class management, and what kind of
procedures teachers have to follow. Field experience showed me real unexpected
things that teachers deal every day and how important our decisions made in our
classroom makes the difference.
Field experience is going to influence my assessments because it will give
me the opportunity to observe techniques and strategies to apply in the
evaluation of how effective my students are learning the content, what students
know and dont

know. When Im in school and with students, I can examine

the assessments that are going to provide information about effectiveness of the
program, school improvement goal, alignment of curriculum, or students
placement in a specific program, which will allow me to begin the process of

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becoming inquiring, reflective professional and gaining skills that will influence
my teaching career.
This field experience was a bridge between gaining knowledge through
theory, what I learned in coursework as a student and becoming competent
member of teaching profession. Practicing and making real decisions in a
classroom as a teacher, sharing with knowledgeable educational professional
helped me to understand the challenges and rewards of teaching.
Exploring and observing the art of teaching at the field experience are vital
part of our teacher education. Observing an expert teacher at work, how
students react in the classroom and how a good teacher adjusts any situation in
response, provided me as a student the opportunity to examine teaching in
practice and made me think about myself as professional educator.
Field experience gave me the opportunity to see how theories studied in
class actually affect the practice of teaching. As a student, I gained valuable
strategies for classroom management, I discovered new ways to present
challenging material, and I started building my professional experience.
By observing in my field experience I gained knowledge, interest, and skills
that I am going to apply in every decision I make in my daily environment in my
classroom to help my students learning. Also I discovered barriers that I can
reflect on and made adaptations that enable my students to overcome obstacle
and build on what they know.
I discovered that teaching is a complex work, facing many challenges,
multitasking and making a lot of decisions, but I believe that observation is
essential if Im going to becoming a teacher, because by observing I can reflect
on what I learn in the classroom and think about myself as a potential teacher
and the teaching profession itself.

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At first when I heard that we were required to complete at least 20 field
experience hours, I asked myself, why we have to do field experience hours at
early stage of our teaching career, but now Im really glad that it was a
requirement, because I learned the efforts that takes to be a teacher and reflect if
it will be the right career for me to pursue.
This course offered me the opportunity to explore the challenges and
rewards of teaching in elementary school. It let me growth and development
techniques and strategies to apply in my teaching field experience with
researched, discussions, philosophies, social and legal issues, students diversity,
and professionalism, by observing and analyzing in a real classroom. Also this
course help me get familiar with federal, state, and local government in relation
to educational governance and finance, various states salary, compensation
packages, and the development of school district budgets. Participating in a field
experience at an elementary school and dialogue with professional teachers
increased my knowledge and made me aware of faculty right and professional
responsibility.

Norma Magana
12/01/14