Importance Of Field Experience

When I was first assigned Ms. Clark’s 6th grade Language Arts class, I had mixed feelings on my field placement. During my first two years here at Manchester University, I have spent my field experience in the history department at the high school level. Also, I have spent countless hours studying my content area to be prepared for my future profession. I was scared of venturing out of my comfort zone and into an area I lack knowledge. However, as I have learned, all growth occurs outside of your comfort zone. Over the course of this semester, I have worked with Ms. Clark in her high ability class to help prepare myself to reach all learners in my classroom. Recently, I conducted an interview with her in order to better understand my future

According to Ms. Clark, her classroom structure is very similar between the two classes, however, the difficulty is different. For example, I observed that she begins each day by silent reading for 15 minutes. Both of her classes are allotted this opportunity, but the difficulty of the reading is different for the two. Her high ability students are held to a higher standard when it comes to their reading levels. She attempts to challenge her high ability students by providing books that are more difficult. However, Ms. Clark’s reading program is based upon choice, so she can only suggest challenging books. It is up to the students to actually follow through. Also, an observation that we made was that the high ability students tend to read young adult and fantasy books. Along with more challenging books, she differentiated their vocabulary words. Each week, the students are assigned a list of words that are to master. The high ability class has a more sophisticated set of words than the typical students. However, the main difference between the two classes is the pace at which she teaches them. On average, Ms. Clark’s typical class finishes a unit in five days, whereas her high ability class finishes that same unit in three. On the additional two days, she pushes the students further into the material. For example, she taught a lesson about the five elements of short

Ms. Clark informed me that by state law, the school must provide some form of high ability class but that is about all the guidance she receives from the state. According to her, the state offers some high ability curriculum and lessons but it is not as in-depth as the typical standards. She also informed me that teachers do not need to be certified in high ability to teach the course. With all that being said, she told me that her approach to teaching the course is to take a typical standard and put a twist to it. And most importantly, help students love to