Week 3-January 31, 2009

The beginning of this past week went well for me-I really had a lot of fun with the students and have a new appreciation for snow days. Last week I reported of the assignment I gave the computer applications classes and I started off the week with them actually presenting them. I learned quite a bit about them that I would not have otherwise and hope to incorporate that information as we continue on with the semester. I think it will help me to personalize the content in the near future for them. As far as snow days go, on one hand it was great to have a catch up day-both on sleep and work I had to do. I used it to get ahead as much as I could with lesson plans and Clinical Studies assignments. However, I have to say it was difficult to have a snow day in the middle of the week like we did for the students' end. On Tuesday it was somewhat difficult to keep them oriented because the talk of the school was the possibility of not having school the next day. Then when we returned on Thursday after a two hour delay, they knew the weekend was coming soon. It was definitely a learning experience on the other side of being a teacher.

This is the first week of student teaching that I would do anything to change what happened. To give a short explanation of what happened, on Thursday (the two hour delay day) I got into a minor vehicle accident-with a student. Everyone is okay, but both our vehicles need repaired. After that fiasco I went in to the school, being late of course, and had to teach the period after the one I got to. No big deal, I kept thinking of Mrs. Wiscount's example from last Monday's class about putting your game face on and being ready for the students. Well, not only was I ready for the students but it just so happened that I was getting observed that day. It was quite the experience, one that taught me no matter what, be ready for anything!

Week 2

At the end of my second week, I can say I feel more comfortable at the school and feel a part of it. Last week I felt like an outsider just visiting but now I think the students view me as another one of their teachers. I've had a great time getting to know them and connecting with them. In the computer applications class, my co-op and I gave the students an "about me" PowerPoint assignment. We wanted to first of all see how well the students know PowerPoint and figure out what we actually need to teach them about it. We also gave them this assignment just to get to know them better-the class is mostly freshmen and it's a semester course so my co-op just meet them this week as well. Their skills pretty much blew us out of the water, we underestimated how much they know how to do in PowerPoint. It was like they had already taken the course!

At the beginning of the week on Monday, teachers had an in-service day. The school district is a part of the Learning Focused program and the in-service was all day training for it. No one seemed to be looking forward to it. I was interested to see what was involved with it, if what we had been learning in our educational classes matched up to what the training was. For the most part, everything in the training involved strategies I had heard of at some point from previous professors. However too much was thrown into one day, the teachers quickly lost interest because the trainer from the Learning Focused program was very elementary oriented. She didn't apply it to high school content very well. I have to say so myself that it was a long day. I think the day would have been much more worthwhile if it would have been only a half day of training then have the teachers collaborate with the others in their department as to how they will implement the strategies they had just heard about.

As for changing anything about this past week, everything went well so I don't feel I would need to change. The only thing that I'm struggling a bit with is learning the students' names. I have a terrible memory and just can't seem to remember who's who. It'll come though!

Jan. 17

At the end of my first week of student teaching, one of the aspects I found most beneficial was talking with my co-op and other teachers about some of the realities of a high school classroom. I have found it beneficial to hear all of their different strategies about classroom management such as teaching strategies, student behavior, organizing, and the never ending list of a teacher's responsibility. My co-op's classes are all semester classes with this past week being the last of the first semester. I will meet my students this coming week, however I did try and get to know the students. I was able to help a student who just got accepted to Bloomsburg by finding a few phone numbers for departments on campus she needed and gave her tips for getting around on campus. It felt good to help her out! I completed my elementary and middle school BCIT observations this week which helped to reinforce my preference of becoming a high school teacher. I enjoy working with the younger kids, but I would rather teach content classes such as marketing or personal finance rather than computer classes. You usually don't find those classes at the elementary or middle school levels. I enjoyed my time at the two schools, I was really impressed to see the fifth grade students learning keyboarding and eighth graders putting the finishing touches on their websites they had created. They are more advanced than I was at their age!

Overall this week went well and there really isn't much I would change about it. It was nice to have a week to get used to the school's operation and my co-op's schedule. One thing I would do though is to take on more responsibility of the little things I could do, like taking attendance or doing homework checks. My co-op didn't have me start that until Wednesday or Thursday when I could have been helping him out earlier. I am hopeful next week will go as well as this one did as the real teaching begins!