Experience Essay Sample: First-Grade Classroom

To begin with, I was able to observe a first-grade classroom. We got told to describe and show examples of physical, cognitive, and social development seen in a first-grade classroom. This experience helped me hands-on to see what is supposed to be executed in a classroom of elementary students as a future educator myself! First, when I stepped foot into the first-grade classroom, my eyes lit up. I could see from all the fun and bright decorations that this classroom had a jungle theme. All different prints of fun animal-like zebra print, cheetah print as well as lion print were put throughout the room. This deals with the furnishing and the layout of the room, which was very neat and organized. The chairs were in rows of 3, containers laid out on shelves organized to perfection with each student's supplies and the floor spotless exempting the floor mats and circles. I learned that the circles are the first-graders “dots” for when they have floor time and the mat in the room was for “reading time”. This supports the physical development of these children specifically. They have room to move around and go hang out with fun “jungle-themed” spots around the room when in need, making this first-grade classroom a very good safe space for these students. Regarding cognitive development when talking about “student containers” each student had their container with a whiteboard, reading books, and any other supplies of their own. This gives the children a sense of belonging and responsibility because it is their responsibility to not lose anything, but all the stuff is theirs! This also allows for them to learn at the best of their ability because of these resources given to them. Emotional and socially, the room felt like a safe place kid could go anywhere for assistance if needed. There was a “cool down” center where kids needed a brain break to calm down and there were desks around the corners of the room to give the students room to be alone. This teacher showed her empathy with these students to make their voices and feelings be heard and to make her students feel important as well. The first-graders focus on learning was on reading and vocabulary. Some students would get in a group with the teacher and learn antonyms, synonyms, and sight words. The students also would do a worksheet with the teacher and when they were done, they would take it to their seat and finish it if they didn't. The teacher used informal language by reading off sight words and asking questions for the students to answer. This reinforced positive learning behaviors so that these kids would master these skills. While this was going on, the students that were not working with the teacher were working alone at their desks. Some things that I observed students with their iPads doing persisted math, reading, and science activities through an app on their iPad. There were different activities, games, quizzes all about different subjects that these students were learning at the time to improve their scores when the teacher was away from them. The set-up of having rotations with students working alone on their iPads and then with the teacher is a great strategy because students get to learn on their own with their own choice of activity, but the teacher can also teach what is expected of her to each student when in the rotation with the teacher. Not one student got off task and I noticed a nice flow of how things went in the short time I was there. Once the 15-minute time went off all it took was the sound of the teacher’s voice saying “switch” and everyone obeyed and followed. After this station was done, a teacher came in and took the students who did not finish their worksheets in time. This teacher worked with these students separately in the library one-on-one to help them. Next, I was able to observe the physical, cognitive, and emotional development of these children. The age range was around 7 to 8 and the kids were still shy, but they showed curiosity. They had persistent facial expressions and there were a lot of fines gross motor abilities that I observed. Some examples include first-graders cutting out stuff on paper, pinching their fingers when writing with their pencil as well as using their fingers to navigate through their iPad. When looking at the cognitive side of their development, these children were able to speak a fluent sentence and continuously talk in multiple sentences. When considering their problem-solving skills, they were easily able to find the problem and fix it right away without hesitation. Then looking at emotional and social development, these children showed their expression. I saw happiness, joyfulness, and intuition in these students. I saw students even feel for others in their emotions as well. There was a lot of independent work time and whenever another student needed help, they would turn to their neighbor and simply ask for help. All the children seemed content happy and safe. I would notice that kids would stop and talk to each other in the middle of their learning and give feedback to other students whenever they needed it. This experience will help me be more effective as a professional working with children in the education system because it gave me a one-on-one chance to see what it's like in person. I will be able to take ideas from these teachers currently and use them in my future practices. I will be able to have a visual representation when I have my classroom and I will have a better understanding of how things should look as well as how things should be. Even getting the experience to talk to other teachers and students is a great opportunity because I learned so much from each different teacher in the way they taught their classroom and why. Since I was able to see different classrooms, I now have an idea as to what I can put in my classroom. I now know what to wear because I was able to observe what is professional for a teacher's attire, and I also know now how kids should be reacting as well as responding when in the classroom. Lastly, specific strategies. The main one that I thought was very effective was giving children the option. When a student didn't want to do something, the teacher would offer them two options. For example, if the student was asked to complete their worksheet, and they did not want to do it. The teacher would then offer them to either go on their iPad or still do their worksheet leaving them with an extra option. This helped to make the decision easier for children to choose what they wanted to do, and they would usually choose their iPad. This helped them from preventing no work from getting done and some work from getting started. Another effective strategy that I noticed as well was that if the teacher notice that a student was off task, she would simply remind the student of their time. This encouraged children to stop and think and made them want to start working on their activities. She was not forcing them to do their work but just giving them a kindly reminder. The last teaching strategy that I liked, was the stations. I mentioned this earlier, but I just like the fact that the teacher was able to implement what she wanted to teach while the students were also doing other work on their iPads to improve their skills and other subjects. This helped the teacher get what she needed to get done in small groups as well kids getting their work done independently. In conclusion, being able to go out and observe a first-grade classroom was an amazing experience and opportunity and I will never forget what I saw. I will take these experiences with me in the future and use them as an outline for my future self as an educator.