Blog Post 5

One word to describe my past week: successful. I feel like I'm starting to hit my stride at Parker, which is great because I am taking over this week with a unit on World War I. More importantly, I was able to plan ahead for the next week and a half, and I am all set to teach WWI. This allowed me to have a stress-free weekend putting the finishing touches on my materials. Even more, it puts me in a great place to gain some ground on the edTPA. I'm really happy with where I am right now.

My past week relates to the biggest takeaway I have so far from student teaching, which is to always stay ahead in planning. I realize now that I could have done a better job at this in my first placement, but now I am really utilizing the planning time I have during the day to get a great chunk of my work done. This will help me overall as a teacher going forward. I'm blessed with a cooperating teacher who is really showing me the ropes in terms of planning, and I'm very thankful for that.

In terms of testing, I think more often than not we use it as the be-all-end-all when assessing student development. Educators need to remember that a great deal can affect a student's performance on a test, and we really should do all we can to put the child in the best possible position to succeed when testing. This will boost the student's confidence and really reinforce what is being taught in the classroom.

My next step for the edTPA project is to wrap up my lesson plans and begin the other writing sections. The next month will be a lot of work, but I am in a great position to get the job done.