Summary of Student Teaching Field Experience

Jayne Peterson Leusink

I had the opportunity to student teach at Roosevelt High School, located in Sioux Falls, SD. Roosevelt is one of three traditional high schools in the Sioux Falls School District. I was under the supervision of Cathy Regas, who teaches Business Education and is also the chair of the Business Computer Department at Roosevelt High School. Our daily class schedule in a computer lab at Roosevelt went as followed:

Period	Time	Class
Period 1	8:10 am – 9:00 am	Introduction to PC
Period 2	9:05 am – 9:55 am	Web Design
Reading	10:00 am – 10:25 am	Reading/AD Room
Period 3	10:30 am – 11:20 am	Personal Finance
Period 4	11:25 am – 12:18 pm	Personal Finance
Period 5A	12:23 pm – 12:47 pm	Lunch
Period 5B	12:52 pm – 1:15 pm	Dept. Chair Planning
Period 6	1:20 pm – 2:10 pm	Personal Finance
Period 7	2:15 pm – 3:05 pm	Planning

After spending approximately one week observing each class, I left for Madison to complete my last education courses at Dakota State University. The courses lasted three weeks, and each offered great insight into student teaching. When I got back, I took that next week to get back into the swing of things, and I observed again for one week. I then began to teach short lessons to the Personal Finance class, and conducted short activities to go along with Mrs. Regas’s lesson plans. Since I had a presence in the classroom, I started teaching the whole lesson the very first day in October. Since there are three Personal Finance classes in one day, I was very busy with just the one class.

I continued to observe the other classes while taking over the Personal Finance classes. Occasionally, I would chime in and help teach in the Introduction to Computer class, but I didn’t fully take over until we finished the Microsoft Word unit. During the Word unit, I would always help students and answer questions. I then took over and taught the Microsoft Excel and then the PowerPoint unit.

For the Web Design class, I did not ever teach a lesson or a unit. Mrs. Regas and I agreed that I would solely teach the Introduction to Computer class and the Personal Finance class. The software used for the Web Design class was older, and it was difficult to keep up with the frequency of changing programs (Photoshop, Adobe Flash, Dreamweaver). I was involved in the class, and observed each lesson to gain experience with the software and how to teach the subject matter.

I continued to teach every lesson in the Personal Finance classes from October 1^st until December 14^th. I started teaching the Introduction to Computer class in November, and finished approximately the first week in December. After we completed the PowerPoint unit in the Introduction to PC class, the students have additional time to complete missing work and work on the semester project.

After completing my student teaching field experience, I truly feel that I grew both personally and professionally. I was able to try new ideas, challenge myself, and manage the classroom with poise. I used every planning period and moments of free time to stay up to date on grading and giving feedback to students, while also planning and preparing for future lessons. I took advantage of opportunity, and I used technology available from Roosevelt High School every day in each class. My field experience was very immersed in technology. We used the Smart Board and it’s features everyday, and frequently utilized the SmartSync technology to monitor and broadcast each student’s individual PCs. Students were engaged in active learning, which was supplemented by the use of this technology.