Work Experience
During my senior year of high school, I had the opportunity to work at South Shades Crest Elementary School's After-School Extended Day Program. I had my own class of kindergarten students to care for every afternoon. This gave me a lot of hands-on experience with children and taught me important lessons about classroom management. While I did not have to teach the students lessons, I did plan activities, help with homework, and manage behavioral issues that arose each day. It was definitely a challenge, but I grew a lot that year as a future educator as I learned to manage different situations every day.
In the summer following my freshman year at Auburn University, I worked at the Montclair Early Learning Center in the preschool classroom a few days each week. I thoroughly enjoyed this experience because I was assisting the main teacher, which gave me the opportunity to observe her throughout the entire day. By assisting in this classroom, I learned about creating and using SmartBoard presentations interactively with students, different resources to use, like StarFall, that have beneficial activities for young learners, and how to work with small groups of students at a time on lessons while keeping other students on task as well.
This past summer I worked as a Summer Show-Offs Camp Counselor and as a choreographer for MoTowne Productions in Birmingham, AL. In these summer music camps, I worked with children aging anywhere between the range of 3rd and 12th grade. This exposed me to a large variety of children and what each different age level needs to be successful and stay on task. Teaching children choreography is very similar to teaching them subjects in school, because you still have to keep them focused, engaged, and under control. There are behavior problems that arise and there always children who are tired of learning dances and do not want to participate anymore. Working with each group and age level was different, which meant that I had to get to know these children quickly to give them different instruction, feedback, and amount of break time for fun and games that their group specifically needed to be successful. Working with these children throughout the entire summer gave me more confidence in myself as an educator.
Pre-Teaching Experience
I completed my pre-teaching experience at South Shades Crest Elementary School in Hoover, AL. I spent time with Ms. Mary Kaylor Caffey's second grade class and got to experience what it would be like to teach children of this age group. I was able to observe both in November and May to experience both the progress of her students and classroom management throughout the course of the year and the chaos that inevitably comes with the school year coming to an end. I feel lucky to have been able to see Mrs. Caffey's instruction, lesson planning, and miscellaneous end-of-the-year tasks first-hand.
Service Learning and Classroom Experience
In the spring of 2016, I completed 25 service learning hours in Beverly Adams' preschool class at the Auburn Early Learning Center. This fall, I am completing 25 service learning hours in Mrs. Lumpkin's fourth grade class at Wrights Mill Road Elementary School. In both of my service learning experiences, I have had opportunities to observe terrific teachers. Both Mrs. Adams' and Mrs. Lumpkin have fantastic classroom management. I have also enjoyed having time to work with children of different age levels in the classroom to better understand what is expected and needed from educators at each level of elementary education.
This semester I am getting to spend time in Mrs. Barker's first grade class at Dean Road Elementary tutoring a student in reading. I am also spending time in Mrs. Henderson's third grade class at Reeltown Elementary teaching integrated core curriculum lessons with music. These experiences are giving me hands-on time with students in a classroom to practice my teaching techniques. Each lesson that I teach, I learn more and more about how to better reach students and communicate with them. I believe that working in these classrooms is giving me practice at creating and preparing for lesson plans.