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This reflective essay summarizes the author's observations in Ms. Ponz's 3rd grade classroom on April 17th. During math, the teacher led a review lesson without notes. In language arts, students worked independently on poetry, writing, and penpal letters while the teacher assisted. The author helped English learners with letter writing. Students also discussed the book "Fish in a Tree" which promotes a growth mindset for struggling students. The author was pleased to see the book incorporated in the classroom and thinks it could be used as a mentor text all year.

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53 views2 pages

Fieldwork5 1

This reflective essay summarizes the author's observations in Ms. Ponz's 3rd grade classroom on April 17th. During math, the teacher led a review lesson without notes. In language arts, students worked independently on poetry, writing, and penpal letters while the teacher assisted. The author helped English learners with letter writing. Students also discussed the book "Fish in a Tree" which promotes a growth mindset for struggling students. The author was pleased to see the book incorporated in the classroom and thinks it could be used as a mentor text all year.

Uploaded by

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Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Diana C.

Reyes
LS 4001
Dr. Michaels
April 17, 2017
Reflective Fieldwork Essay #5

Monday April 17, 1:05 pm, Mathematics and Language Arts

This semester I am observing Ms. Ponz, a 3rd grade teacher at an SF Bay Area School.

Today I was able to observe and participate during math and language arts. During math I was

not able to see much scaffolding or growth mindset strategies, which then led me to ask Ms.

Ponz if she ever has her students take notes on the lessons. She said that she usually does, but

that particular lesson was a review of decimals, fractions, and percents, so she did not expect

them to take notes on it. The students seemed fine with this, as most of them eagerly raised their

hands to answer the questions. The rest of math time consisted of them correcting assignments.

For language arts, the students had a list of activities that they had to finish and submit

online through Google Docs, so Ms. Ponz and I went around the room assisting students with

either their poetry, creative writing, or penpal letters. I helped a few english language learners

with their organizing the words in their sentences for the letters. Afterwards another group of

students was telling me about a book that they had read in their literature circle. The book Fish in

a Tree, by Lynda Mullaly Hunt is great for students who are struggling in school or have a

disability. A quote that guides this book is, Everybody is smart in different way. But if you

judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life believing it is stupid. This book is

aimed for a higher grade level because the focus is a middle school student, but the teacher

believed that some of her students needed to receive this message, so they worked on it together

in a literature group. It actually begins at a second grade reading level, so it should not have been
too difficult for her students, especially since they were in a group. This was to help the students

who had a fixed mindset change their perceptions on what it means to be smart and instead learn

how to overcome challenges. I had identified a few students in that class who had a fixed

mindset, so it was great to see Ms. Ponz use such a great resource to help them change their

mindset.

This book clearly relates to my capstone topic on the growth mindset, and I find it

exciting how Ms. Ponz incorporated it into her classroom, especially since she had not

demonstrated other strategies to teach mindset or cultivate a classroom conducive to it. In my

own classroom I would have all the students read it as a class so that it could be a mentor text to

refer to throughout the rest of the school year. This adds to my knowledge of the growth mindset

because now I know that teachers can also incorporate ideas of mindset through quality

literature. Now I have another strategy that I can use in the future to continue promoting the idea

of a growth mindset.

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