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Reflection Paper
Kyle Patterson
Mrs. Eastman EDUC 111
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Reflection Paper

Before I registered for Introduction to Teaching, I had a misconception of teaching. I just

thought that teaching was going to be an easy and fun occupation, but at the same time very

rewarding. I also thought that I was completely ready to enter the field. This conception wasn’t

completely wrong, but I now know I will have to add in some missing parts. Teaching is fun, but

at the same time it is very stressful. You not only have the school evaluating your abilities, but

you also have the student’s parents, and the students. Teaching is very rewarding, but it can be

hard at sometimes to get through to all the students in order for them to learn. Through this

experience I have learned that there were a few parts that I still need to work on while at

Manchester College and I can’t wait to develop them.

The first day that I was in Mrs. Griffey’s class I did a lot of observations on how

the students and teacher interact, and the classroom environment. Classes are a strange and

unique thing, like snowflakes, because each period of the day you have different personalities

and students, so no one class is alike. Because no one classroom is going to be alike, you have to

change and or add/subtract some methods of teaching and rules for the class. An example for

this is that one class might have a progressivism feel or that is the students are encouraged to

work in groups and have a free give-and-take of ideas, there is some order but not a lot. But for

the next period you might have to have a lot of order, have the students raise their hands, and

limit the group activities because if you allow these things the students can’t handle them and the

classroom turns into D-day all over again. It is very important to recognize how the students in

your classroom learn. Some might be linguistic, this means you will have to incorporate some

writing and speaking in your room. While others might be spatial or kinesthetic, so you might
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have to put some movement and objects into the class lesson plan. You can’t just lecture the

students all the time because that might only benefit half of the classroom population, while the

other half is bored out of their mind. The classroom environment isn’t just the seating

arrangements although that is important; it is also how you interact with the students. The

seating arrangement is the placement of the students. Some might work better in groups, so try

to incorporate some groups of desk. But there might also be those that would rather be alone or

with just one student, so arranging the desks in rows would be a good idea. It’s really important

to understand the classroom is a diverse place. Each student comes from a different home life.

What you might interpret as inappropriate behavior, in the student’s home life would be consider

acceptable behavior. In some ways the teacher defines the environment within the classroom.

The way the teacher interacts with the students formulates how the students feel about the class.

Some teachers make the classroom a hostile place, where the students can’t learn because they

are so focused on defending themselves against the teacher. In most cases the teacher can make

the classroom a fun and safe place where the students can learn because they are comfortable.

Classroom environment and student teacher interactions are vital in the learning processes of the

students. This is because you develop a relationship with the student where you can begin to

recognize how they learn. After developing a relationship with the student you can then

incorporate ways that will help them learn into your daily plan. Each class will have a different

plan because the classes are filled with different students who all have their individual style of

learning.

There were only a few lessons that I observed being taught by Mrs. Griffey,

because she was nice enough to let my fellow peers and I teach. But of those few that I

observed, I learned quite a lot. She told us it is important to have the students do some short
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work at the beginning of class that reviews the material that you just taught the day before.

This, for her, was a small writing activity, which they would later go over. The next thing that

she would do, was a lecture and would go straight into the new material. That way the students

could apply the stuff they just reviewed, while learning the new material. After the new material

was taught, she would then go into a group activity. The group activity allowed her to walk

around and help those that weren’t quite getting the new material or pass classes. But, it would

also allow the students the opportunity to work in groups.

When my peers and I were teaching, we tried to incorporate most of the things that Mrs.

Griffey did. We also tried some new things. Our day consisted of a memory game at the

beginning of class. This game reviewed past lessons that Mrs. Griffey taught. Our philosophy

was if we could grab their attention at the first few minutes of class, they would pay attention for

the rest of class. Upon the end of the review game, we would go straight into the new material.

This usually consisted of two or more of us teaching the class. We did this because we thought

that they would enjoy the change in having two teachers instead of just one. After the new

material was taught, we either played a game that integrated what was just taught. When we

taught them the new vocabulary, we had a few games we like to play. We tried to have a game

that was fun for all, but also had a focus on each way a student learned. One game was where

we would say, “Hay unasilla. ¿Dónde está?” (I’m a chair. Where am I?). Two students would

then have to race and point out the object we said. This helped those that liked physical activity

and learned visual. Another, example of a game we played for vocabulary was around the world.

We made up vocabulary note cards, and would have students go one on one against each other,

first to say what the vocab word meant went onto the next round. Both of these games were well

liked, and we thought focused the different learning styles, while still making it fun. The final
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thing our lesson plan contained was a group activity that included some sort of writing activity.

This was done toward the end of class, because if the students didn’t finish it, it would become a

homework assignment. Over all, I thought my peers and I did a great job while teaching. The

students seemed to open up to us, and even felt comfortable in asking questions. This was

something I didn’t observe in the lessons taught by Mrs. Griffey. I contribute the most to our

success to the environment of the class. I thought we created a fun and comfortable learning

environment, where students were challenged to review material while playing a fun game.

Throughout this whole experience, I learned a lot about what I did well and what I need

to improve on while at Manchester College. I felt that there were a lot of things I did well as a

teacher. It didn’t take a lot of time for the students to open up to me, and feel comfortable to ask

questions. I really enjoyed answering the questions each student had, and even teaching some

students how to conjugate verbs and use them. I also thought that I did a great job in

encouraging the students, and not letting them just slip by when I knew they were capable of

doing better. In one case, we all had to make a fool of ourselves by dancing to the alphabet song,

but I can guarantee that the students won’t soon forget the words to the song. In order for us to

dance they had to sing the words to the song loudly or we wouldn’t move. Another thing that I

thought I did surprisingly well was being aware of what is going on in the classroom, and who

isn’t working as well and focused, as they should be. I contribute this to the fact that I’m not that

old, and most of the things they were doing, I did not too long ago. There are a few goals that I

hope to achieve before leaving Manchester. The first one is to know more about my content,

mainly the vocabulary and speaking skills. The vocabulary review games were as much as a

review for the students as they were for me. Grant it, they were learning objects in the

classroom, such as a pencil sharpener and a computer screen, which aren’t stressed too much in
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speaking. If I want to teach a topic, I should try to learn as much as I can about it and never stop

learning Spanish, this is also one of my goals. Another thing I could learn more about, are

teaching methods, and classroom management. I feel that a reason I don’t know too much about

teaching is because I haven’t taken enough education classes. I should take more classes on those

subjects to improve my subjects. The final thing that I think I need to approve on is the fact that

you shouldn’t judge students by the way they act in the classroom because this may be accepted

at home. Rather I should try to help them see what they need to become successful in my class.

This whole experience has been a great eye-opener for me. It has shown me what I do

well as teacher, and also what I need to improve. It has been an emotional activity. It meant a lot

to me that students where saying “Hi, Mr. Patterson” in the hallway, after only knowing me for a

few days. I believe I have found my niche as an educator, and that is in an inner city school

district. Having not graduated from one, I thought that there were only students there that didn’t

care about learning, but I was completely wrong. I am very sad that this experience had to come

to an end, but also excited. I have enjoyed learning about myself as an educator, and can not wait

to have my own classroom. I’m also very excited to be teaching students a subject that I love.