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.