Field Blog 1 at Boulevard Elementary School

Within the past three weeks, I have learned in class about the importance of teachers helping and being patient with the students in class. Labeling students in schools only lower the self-esteem of students in the classrooms that are trying their very best to learn. I also learned that the best ways to learn in a classroom are to find creative ways to learn and retain information. On my visit to Boulevard Elementary School, I saw a lot of things that I learned about in class such as watching how the teachers teach their class, the learning environment they worked in and I saw how patient and creative the teachers were with the students.

The first classroom I observed was a kindergarden classroom being taught by Mrs. Reynolds. The first thing I noticed when I went in the classrooms were that there were no walls. Instead of walls I noticed how cabinets and shelves were divided to separate the rooms. When Mrs. Reynolds was trying to teach it got a little noisy from the students next door and their class trying to learn. I noticed how the teacher found fun and creative ways to teach her students. When the students were learning the A, B, C's they were eager to continue learning. The students were also learning parts of the body and about animals in the animal book they were reading. The students were all well behaved and all eager to learn which made the class fun to observe. It gave me ideas to help teach my future kindergarten class one day.

The second room I observed it was Mrs. Bilini's fourth grade class. I noticed how Mrs. Bilini was super strict in the classroom with the students. She was explaining to the students about a group project regarding American Indians and I noticed how she went into discussing to us a little about Study Island which is an online learning program ran by the district. It was interesting to see the technological ways that the student learned from. I noticed that Mrs. Bilini was stern with explaining the projects and directions to the kids and that she was strict with questions only being answered after she gave directions. The class was very well behaved and Mrs. Bilini was doing a very good job teaching.

When I observed Mrs. Curry's third grade class I noticed how her room was filled up with educational posters and different signs for helping the student learn better. When I walked in the room I immediately got the vibe of learning and that it was noticeable that the teacher cared about the student and teaching all of them. I liked how she split the kids into groups so they could get help from each other and also get help from her too. It also was a room with walls and it was easy for the students to sit in the room and discuss the Ruby Bridges book that they were reading. Each student worked hard with one another in groups and Mrs. Curry did a good job communicating with the students in the groups.

In Mrs. Preston's second grade classroom I saw that she was stern with the students as well. I liked how she had a "Wall of Fame" where the kids would place clothes pins where they're behavior was. I noticed how Mrs. Preston gave no warnings to the students when they were not behaving. In my opinion I liked this disciplinary style because it automatically instills on the kids that the classroom isn't a place of learning not fooling around. I also liked how she read a story to the students and then had them all discuss it with one another. 

Overall from my visits to Boulevard Elementary School was both an interesting and enlightening experience. It opened my mind to think of new and creative ways to learn in a classroom and how to come up with those ideas of learning techniques. It made me happy to notice that the more happy the teacher was to teach a class, the more eager the student was to learn. In all of the classrooms I went to I never saw the teacher shut down the student I saw them lead the student to the right answer. The teachers were all patient and creative with their styles of teaching. It was an over all good visit.