Summer Enrichment Reflection

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          For my Summer Practicum, I spent six weeks in Russell County Alabama at the St. Joseph’s Child Development Center. We were each assigned an age group and a room, and I had the pleasure of being in the Blue Room with the six to eight year olds. Within our classroom, we had one child with a speech delay as well as a child with Autism/Aspergers. These two children in particular took a liking to each other, and over the summer, they would go to one another in search for comfort when something went didn’t go their way. This age group was originally older that I wanted to have this summer, but it turned out to be the best experience. We were able to do so many small projects in our classroom that turned out to be a part of our final project. The children in this classroom had so much patience in making art projects that it made the Paper Mache animals enjoyable instead of tedious. Even though I was place in the Blue Room, we were allowed to walk around and visit/spend time with other classrooms. When I chose to walk around, I typically went to the Rainbow Room, which was the two year old classroom. It was interesting to see the difference between my class of six to either year olds and the class of two and three year olds. While the two and three year old classroom would give me hugs every time I stepped into their classroom, my six to eight year olds were capable of holding a conversation, for the most part. Through summer enrichment, I am now able to identify my strengths and weaknesses, reflect on my responses to children, and think about how I will incorporate what I have learned into my future courses and classrooms.

          This summer, we spent time studying how to interact with children and speak to children in a more beneficial way. I caught myself saying “good job” at least once every hour during the second week of camp. For the remainder of camp, I worked hard to evaluate if the situation really needed a “good job” or if there were something else that I could say to better serve the student. I also found myself talking to the children instead of talking with the children most of the time. Any time that I sat down to talk to the children, I made the effort to extend their thinking by asking them more questions instead of responding with statements. Having a child in our class that had a speech delay made it difficult to extend conversation sometimes. When I would sit down and talk with him, it was difficult to not only understand him but to also encourage him to talk more. In the beginning, most of our conversations would consist of me repeating what he said to make sure I understand him correctly. By the end of the summer, when he and I would sit down to talk, the conversation became more of me hearing a few things that he would say and expanding the conversation off of that. Even though I still could not understand 100% of what he was telling me, I was able to encourage him to talk to me more. This turned into him coming to tell me things throughout the day and even him telling me “goodmorning” and “goodbye” when he would get to/leave camp -- something he did not originally do.

          This summer, I learned how to be crafty in a classroom. I had never thought of myself as a crafty or artistic person, but this summer, I began to see myself as such. Through the lessons we would plan each week, I would try to incorporate an art lesson as well. The children showed an interest in art as well as the art center, so I would research art activities that we could do in class each week. The children created fish portraits out of paper and marker, seashells out of paper plates and water color paint, and  zoo animals out of paper mache. Along with discovering my artistic ability, I learned that my classroom management skills have developed. Instead of giving the children “rules” to follow, we gave the children the chance to make their own “guidelines.” These guidelines were created by the children and were to be followed on a daily basis. Instead of telling the children what guideline they didn’t follow when they didn’t follow it, I gave the children the chance to reflect on their day and identify what guidelines they didn’t follow on their own. This summer has given me the chance to try out new classroom management skills, and I plan to incorporate them into future classrooms.

          Along with learning some of my strengths, I also learned more about my weaknesses. My most shown weakness was that I don’t adjust to change very well. When I had something planned for the day, if it did not go quite as planned, I did not always have a backup plan or adjust well to the extra time. When a project took less time than I had planned for, I would allow the children to clean up and choose which centers they want to play in. About half way through the camp, I noticed a few children rushing through projects because they knew I would let them play if they completed their tasks early. Once I caught onto this, I asked the children who rushed to wait on their friends or even help their friends finish. As the children caught on to me asking them to stay with their friends, they began to take their time on projects. There were still times that there was spare time, but there wasn’t as much spare time as there was before.

          Over the course of Summer Practicum, I learned how to identify and further my strengths as a teacher, how to identify and better my weaknesses as a teacher, and how to better my responses to children during conversations. I now know that asking the class to make our guidelines will work in future classrooms. I now know that when I make plans for the day, I also need to make backup plans or plan for there being extra time. I now know that when I have conversations with students, I should prompt them with questions instead of statements as responses. When I am making plans for my classrooms during the next two semesters, I will take all of this into account. I will think about how I can prompt children to discuss with me as well as classmates; I will think about having extra time when the children are partaking in a lesson plan that I have developed; I will think about having the children create guidelines. As a whole, I am happy with the way that Summer Practicum worked out, and I am excited to use what I have learned in future classrooms.

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