Fieldwork
During my time at GSE, I have been involved in a lot of fieldwork. In EDUC 7323, I interviewed a white woman and a woman from my hometown about how family and school influence women's identity building process. Through the interactions with my interviewees and classmates, I realized that numerous privileges are hidden in our lives, and I also realize that sexism exists in different cultural contexts. I also gained a clearer understanding of the injustices faced by people of color by listening to the narratives and lived experiences of classmates from diverse backgrounds during each group discussion. These insights inspired me to critically reflect, acknowledge, and appreciate my privileges while recognizing the responsibility to leverage my knowledge and experiences to improve society and fight against discriminations. Educators must not only teach their students what is in the textbooks but also try to create a classroom that is harmonious, caring, and inclusive of diverse cultures.
In the class EDUC 6329, Friday Night Writes was the fieldwork that helped me the most. I could apply all the theoretical knowledge I learned in the class to my sessions with different kids every Friday. During each session, I gained a deeper understanding of how to effectively incorporate various teaching methods, and I also summarized many mistakes I have encountered during my teaching. Participating in FNW honed my teaching skills and allowed me to better absorb the theoretical knowledge I had learned. Learning the theory is very different from applying it in real-life teaching. The teaching process that we envision in our classroom discussions is always too good to be true. In reality, there are always unexpected problems that prevent us from utilizing a teaching method perfectly. Apart from struggling with real-life teaching, I also try different tools to help students build their literacy skills. We used magnetic words to compose poems in limited time, plot cards to create wild stories, and the exciting scramble game to help with word formation. Exploring different games with my students really makes me happy, and every Friday is the day that I look forward to the most.
In addition, I was impressed with inquiry 4 in this course because I have never made a video and couldn't imagine that I could edit one on my own. In the process of completing this inquiry, not only did I learn how to edit a video, but I also learned how to express my ideas in different forms. Sometimes, homework can be something other than paper based. A multimodal learning model will motivate students to learn independently instead of being forced to accept knowledge.
Overall, the fieldwork that I have completed during my RWL studies has helped me to grow in different aspects, including basic knowledge, teaching skills, and mental level. The diverse fieldwork has shown me the charm of multimodality and made me realize the importance of implementing multimodal pedagogy in my future teaching.