Student Teaching Blog

This week I've noticed that I am starting to feel more comfortable with my lessons. I am not as nervous as I was before. I definitely feel like I need more practice, but I feel I've made some progress. My host teacher mentioned that it has taken her years to master the skills she has. That helped me feel more at ease. I guess I was feeling like I had to fix my teaching strategies overnight when I was getting feedback, but I'm realizing that I have to take baby steps and make small, but effective changes. And I guess this is what this whole experience is about. This past week I also had my first observation and I got to personally meet my supervisor, Mrs. N. I must admit that when she was there I felt really nervous. However, after we had the opportunity to speak I felt much more at ease. She was very supportive and understanding. She has a wealth of knowledge and I am lucky to be learning from her.  In the short amount of time that we talked I felt like I learned so much ...

This week I continued to teach more read-alouds. I've learned to be more animated and I've learned that if I keep students on the carpet for too long they lose interest. I am still working on the flow of my lessons. I use sticky notes throughout the books to guide me when I'm reading to the class. There are a few students who do seem more fidgety than others on the carpet. Luckily, Mrs. E has seat cushions. When certain students use seat cushions on carpet it seems to help them stay more focused. The PBIS system finally started. The school printed out tickets and I started passing them out to reward good behavior. The students responded really well to the tickets. I've noticed a HUGE change in behavior when we started passing them out. There is a certain student who we feel might need some sort of behavioral plan. Mrs. E and I are brainstorming ideas to help the student be more successful. Report card grades are due soon Mrs. E was showing me how to grade and when to ...

This week I'd like to post more about my thoughts and feelings regarding this experience. I am going to be vulnerable. I just want to clarify that this is how I feel and I don't mean any type of disrespect.  Ultimately, I understand I need to manage my time better. At the moment I am feeling extremely overwhelmed. I have to write a detailed lesson for every lesson I teach on top of other homework activies. I understand we need the practice. However, all these other responsibilities are really taking away from valuable edTPA prepping time. I wish the class was designed where we only had to teach 1-2 lessons a day until we submit edTPA. Once,  edTPA is submitted, we would then be able to devote all our time and energy into lesson planning and other homework. It's taking me a long time to create these lessons and I still have to manage to find the time to prepare for my edTPA lessons. I have not even started on my edTPA lessons because I have 10 read-a-loud lessons to prepa...

What happened this week? What did you do? Your cooperating teacher do? Students do? Others? What was effectively done in the class? Instead of describing everything, choose a few events that somehow were significant. What made them significant? Did you see anything that challenged your belief's about teaching or learning? Students started school on September 3rd. It was a very busy week. I mostly observed and assisted. We went over the classroom rules and expectations. We put materials away and labeled notebooks and folders. We passed out math workbooks and other materials. I introduced myself and I sent an "about myself" letter to parents. I also sent the student video release form home. Mrs. E modeled how students should behave in the classroom. She constantly referred back to the first classroom rule: be respectful. She went over the classroom routine. We redirected and modeled constantly. I taught the students a few call and response chants. I walked them to and f...