Overall, fieldwork was a wonderful experience for me, I was able to meet a bunch of great children and help them out with their science units. My student’s name was Emily and she liked to play soccer on the weekends and was the middle child in her family. She said she liked science and that she had a good average when I first started to work with her so I rarely had difficulty explaining concepts to her and she caught on quite quickly.
The first fieldwork session, we were able to pick a student that we were to work with for the next few weeks on their chapter 12 unit Changes in Matter. I was surprised that I had actually remembered some of the vocabulary words such as matter, chemical change, chemical reaction, mixture and solution; but I had to ask my student to explain to me solute and solvent. This reminded me that sometimes my students may know even more than I do and that it is important to always ask questions in order to find out what kind or how much prior knowledge they acquire before starting a specific unit. Emily knew a lot of the chapter due to the fact that she has said that she read the chapter before starting the unit because she knew that the class would be starting that unit next. This surprised me for the reason that I had never suspected a student of her age to be that excited to learn about science, especially something as challenging as chemistry.
The second chapter my student and I worked on together was Different Kinds of Chemical Reactions. Emily once again did great with learning the chapter; I was able to come to this conclusion by observing her answer questions on a worksheet her teacher had given her. The worksheet was passed out and Emily had gone right to work without any help needed; as I looked around the classroom I noticed that a lot of my classmates had been helping their partners with the worksheet. I had asked Emily if she needed anything from me and she just asked me to look over her worksheet when she was finished to make sure her answers were correct. This taught me that she is an independent learner, is always up for a challenge and truly cares about her work and knowledge by wanting to make sure she had answered the questions correctly.
I am glad you had such a positive fieldwork experience! I found it interesting how much of an active learner you had! She took it upon herself to read the chapter before the class even begun that section. It is interesting how students differ in work habits and learning strategies. My student was bright as well but didn't always do the readings.
ReplyDeleteYou made a good point when saying that our students might know more than we do! You are totally right and I found this to be true with my students, especially in a subject like science. I think it's important as teachers that we prepare ourselves and our students for this and have multiple resources available to reference when needed.