There have been many connections made between what I am learning in class and what I am observing in my service learning classroom. One of the biggest connections I have made is related to learning preferences and how different students learn the best. I have observed students who learn kinesthetically, visually, auditory, and by reading/writing. It is interesting to see how my service learning teacher incorporated each of these styles in to many of her lessons throughout the day. This helps all students with different learning preferences to learn the lessons in the best way possible for their learning type.
I think blogging my observations and connections has forced me to really think about what I observe in the classroom and how applicable the lessons at UVU are to the elementary classroom. Blogging helps me articulate the connections I make and remember what I observe by first learning in class about something, then observing it in my service learning classroom, then lastly writing it down and putting all of it into words. These three steps really solidify concepts I learn in class and help me to keep them in mind.
From my first blog post I can remember being a little naïve about what a teacher actually does. Now I still maintain the same excitement about being a teacher but I am definitely more informed about the roles and responsibilities of being an elementary teacher.

There will always be diversity in any classroom. In my service learning classroom there are students with many different learning levels. Some are ahead and excelling and some are falling behind. One of the students seems like she doesn't listen to instruction very well and is just lost in her own thoughts. My service learning teacher makes sure she keeps the student on task (not in front of the whole class by calling her out, but by going to her desk after instruction and making sure she has her full attention) and that she understands the instructions.
One student has asthma and has a hard time at recess during the winter because the air is colder. While doing an errand for the teacher during recess, I saw this student sitting on the couch in the office. I asked him why he wasn't at recess and he told me about his asthma. This is an accommodation that was arranged for this student to prevent him from having trouble breathing. These are the two students that really stood out to me when thinking about diverse learners. I think my service learning teacher does an excellent job at differentiating instruction for those who need it and making sure that her students are comfortable in the classroom.

This course only added to my excitement of becoming a teacher. I was so glad we were put into the classroom so quickly through our service learning placement. I was previously at BYU and I wouldn't have been put in the classroom until I completed a bunch of classes first which didn't make sense to me. I think the best way to learn is to firsthand be in the classroom observing a real teacher and their class and learn that way. I believe that is a way more beneficial way to learn than to take classes and not even know for sure if you want to be a teacher because you don't know what it's like and you haven't observed a teacher since you attended elementary school.

Because of this I am very confident in my choice to become an elementary teacher. There were a few concerns I had about becoming a teacher and making tedious lesson plans and rubrics for every single little thing and just diving into it. I was also concerned about the dress code and if my current wardrobe would work or not. I asked my service learning teacher and she cleared up a lot of my worries and restored my confidence in wanting to be a teacher.

The difference between standards and curriculum is that standards are the goals we are reaching towards and curriculum is the ways the district tells teachers to teach the standards. I am glad I learned the difference between these words because I used to use them interchangeably.
Standards are definitely being addressed in my service learning placement classroom. I am not sure what the curriculum is but I am sure it is being used. My service learning teacher is very experienced and does an excellent job at teaching the material to the students.

I think my service learning teacher does a good job of giving a good emphasis on each of the standards. Usually she places more of an emphasis on math, science, language arts, and social studies, than art and music, however art does get addressed and mixed in with the other standards. This makes sense to me because math, science, language arts, and social studies are usually the subject that are tested and that the teachers are evaluated on.

1. Describe a time your cooperative teacher has offered choice to students.  

I attended Ridgeline Elementary from fourth grade to sixth grade. My first year there was the first year the school opened. This elementary school is located in Highland, Utah. It is surrounded by rich suburb neighborhoods and is next door to a LDS church building. Many children ride their bikes or walk to school because of the close distance to their homes.

Ridgeline Elementary was ranked #5 in the top 30 elementary schools by test scores by Deseret News in 2012. The web article graphed the school's demographics in a pie graph. The student population consists of mostly white ethnicity followed by Hispanic/Latino. I am very accustomed to this lack of diversity because I have grown up in Utah County for the majority of my life. These demographics are very unsurprising to me.



Service Learning is a huge opportunity to spend time in multiple classrooms to observe multiple teachers and many students of different ages. While observing, I will look for any ways that the teacher caters his/her lessons to each learning type (auditory, visual, kinesthetic). I will take note of classroom management and how the students interact and respond to the teacher. This service learning assignment will hopefully solidify my decision to become an elementary teacher. I am excited to be in the classroom to learn from and to help experienced teachers in whatever way I can. I am a visual learner and I know that I will learn a great deal from watching other teachers. I am grateful for this opportunity to learn from others and to gain a deeper understanding of what being a teacher means.