Fieldwork means I watch someone teach a class. Or several classes.
It’s not easy because I already know this stuff. (I’d better, if I’m going to eventually teach it.) It’s also interesting because, of the teachers I’ve watched, not one of them have followed the strict step-by-step lesson plan formats I get in Curriculum. In my years of both teaching and being taught, I have only met one teacher who follows these formats. This is because she likes structure; so they work for her. But everyone else seems to find the formats too restricting and have pretty much chucked them after they finished college.
Of course, I don’t need to ask Dr. Vaughn why she still teaches these things. I can already determine these answers:
- These are methods that have been demonstrated to work.
- One should always base one’s teaching methods on something that works, rather than what one grew up with.
- The state wants to know that we learned them.
- Our lessons for our state assessments must be structured this way.
- Who knows; I might actually use them.
Dr. Vaughn might have other answers; but for now these are the answers that work for me.