Final Reflection

1. How many hours did you complete?

 I completed five hours of field experience.

2. In a short paragraph or bulleted list, how did you spend your time?

I spent time analyzing reading comprehension data, collaborating with other teachers and the two media specialist in my school to develop ideas and find great books. I also spent a great deal of time with Mrs. Emily Hunt, a fellow third grade teacher who is working towards her Master’s as a Media Specialist. This collaboration allowed me to get a better understanding of what our school library and local library had to offer.

3. How did the experience help you to strengthen at least one Kentucky Teacher Standard?

The objective that I feel I have gained the most knowledge in is Objective 1  choosing age appropriate literature. This has allowed me to become more adept at planning instruction, therefore contributing to Standard 2: The teacher designs and plans instruction. Being able to talk to other teachers and mediaa specialists has helped me in my classroom by allowing me to have some experience with several different genres and titles and authors within those genres. Doing this has allowed me to decide what books I could use to share with my students, books to develop different reading and comprehension strategies and books I can suggest to them. I have many readers who are either above or below grade level and through this course I was able to find some great reads for my readers who may not find what they are looking for in my classroom library. By having classmates and myself add to the Wiki I was able to find a lot of great age-appropriate resources to teach different subject areas.

4. Talk a little about one thing you learned because of this field experience.

One thing I learned is never be scared to ask your school librarian (s) for help! They know the library forward and backward and have a vast knowledge base of what is age-appropriate, grade-appropriate and what will hold the interest of your kiddos. They are there to help both the teachers and the kids and they hold a huge key to student success and learning!