Week 16

Get to know your students. Knowing who your students are, their learning styles, and their interests will help you to make the most of your instruction. It will make it much easier to personalize the content and to reach the students on their level. Also get to know your students outside of the classroom. Take every opportunity to attend games, plays, and school dances. Your students will enjoy seeing you at their event and will help you to earn their respect.

Don't be afraid to try new things in the classroom. Student teaching is your time to experiment while you still have your cooperative teacher there to guide and assist you. Ask for their advice; that's why they are there for you. Often times you both benefit because you as the student teacher are getting help from a veteran teacher's viewpoint and your coop may be hearing new strategies from you.

Work your butt off and manage your time wisely. The Professional Semester is intense. You are not like other college seniors who might have an easy last semester; you are a full time teacher. Time management is essential to this semester because along with your teaching duties, you also have Clinical Studies assignments. Try to do your best to work ahead and don't put those assignments off until the night before they are due.

Be ready for your students-no matter what your day is like. When your students come to your class, they are ready for the show. You can't let your personal life impede on school life. Find ways to mentally prepare yourself for every school day. Also, double check every morning that you have everything for the school day. I found it helpful to stay after school and prepare materials for the next day so you don't have to rush around the following morning.

Have fun and good luck!

Week 15-We're almost done!!

The fact that it's finally week 15 is unbelievable. Even with all the intense stress we have all been through, I have to admit that this semester has flown by. The valuable aspect of my week (along with week 15 being over!) stems from a student behavior issue I have in one of the sections of Computer Applications. There is one particular student who defies my authority as a teacher any chance he gets. My coop and I have taken appropriate steps numerous times in the past with disciplining this student. Finally on Monday after he made unnecessary comments about me, I took a different approach to the situation and called the student into the hallway to talk to him one on one. I explained to him that because I am still learning what it takes to be the best teacher I can and asked him something along the lines of specific things I have done in his class to improve my teaching performance in his class. At first he didn't have anything to say, so I went on and reiterated some of the comments he has made about me and asked him what made him say those things. He immediately said he didn't know why he said what he did and apologized to me. Inside, I was screaming, "Why can't you just act your age?", but I refrained and asked him to help make my last few days positive ones. His behavior improved the rest of the week and I had no issues with him. Hopefully the rest of my time at school will be that smooth!

If I could go back and change anything from this past week, it would be with the test in Tuesday's Money and Banking. I gave them a test which we reviewed for on Monday. We didn't get through the whole I review I planned and I decided to finish it on Tuesday before the students took their test. We ended up taking too much time to finish the review and the students did not have enough time to complete their tests. I gave them more time on Wednesday, but I should have either watched the time better on Tuesday or just pushed the test back a day.

Have a great last three days!

Week 14

My valuable aspect from this past week was with my Business Law students. This is the most recent class I have taken responsibility for and it took me some time to get comfortable actually teaching the students. I have interacted with them all semester, but it is different now that I'm their teacher. Unlike my Money and Banking class where I am familiar with a lot of the content already, I am learning the law content just a few days before the students. My comfort level with them increased this week which abled me to get the content across to them better than the week before. We also had a great review on Thursday for Friday's exam that seemed to reinforce some of the content that was the cause of confusion for the students. The chapter was on contractual capacity and to review, I was the host of the 'Contractual Capacity Olympics.' I split the class into teams and we played three mini games and the team at the end of class who had the most number of wins received extra credit on their exam.

If I could change anything from the week, it would have been to get more work done for our final assessment earlier in the week. I did a few small things, but not as much as I would have liked to get done. I feel overwhelmed which is probably how many of you feel, but I keep trying to remind myself that we're almost done and to stick it out for just a few more days. We're so close!

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Week 13

The ability to be flexible and recognizing when plans need to be changed was my valuable aspect from the week. We had a four day week before having off Friday and Monday and the students' behavior on Thursday definitely showed this. They weren't behaving badly; just extremely hyper, unfocused, and ready for their long weekend as I was too. The day began with only three of ten students in my first period class. I figured it would be more difficult to get over half the class caught up with the new content next week than to do the lesson I had planned. With my coop's approval and help, I figured out a different plan for the class and it worked well. I actually ended up making minor changes for all my classes throughout the day. My little adjustments turned out to be worthwhile. As a whole, it was just one of those days where the students were ready for their break and I think I would have to reteach some of what I would have done today on Tuesday.

If I could change anything from the week, it would definitely be my health. I woke up sick Tuesday morning and had lots of wonderful congestion and a sore throat for the rest of the week. Obviously no one wants to be sick, but it impacted my enthusiasm for teaching and overall performance. Hopefully I'll lose it for the weekend and for next week! :)

Week 12

Like most of you, the valuable aspect of my week was attending the FBLA conference. I was not involved with FBLA in high school and attending the conference showed me how much the organization can benefit students. I couldn't believe how many students are involved! It is obvious that a lot of planning goes into the conference and many people are needed to make it run smoothly. I definitely hope to be taking my future students to it! After returning from the conference, I was very pleased with the sub's report. There were no major behavior issues and each class completed what I left for them. The kids were even happy to see me on Thursday!

On Wednesday after the conference was over, I attend a teaching fair at Millersville University. I was hoping to at least find out about a few possible job openings and leave my application with those schools. Overall, it went ok but I wish I could go back and not even have talked to one of the schools or at least the person I spoke with. After waiting in line to talk to this particular school, I got to speak with the school's superintendent. From the beginning of our talk, it seemed that he did not have much knowledge of Business Education courses or just didn't care for them. His first comment to me was that the district had a BE teacher retiring, but that they probably won't rehire someone to fill the spot. Not very encouraging for me! After more conversation, I just wanted to move on to another school and wished I hadn't even stopped and met with anyone from the school. However, as I was getting up to leave the district's table, the superintendent gave me the phone number for his assistant. He instructed me to call her periodically to see if they have decided to fill the open position. It wasn't the best experience, but at least from now on job opportunities should only get better!