One word to describe this past week: completion (almost!)
It feels great to be wrapping up my student teaching experience. Two things I learned that I did not know at the start of my student teaching experience were the amount of collaboration that goes on with other teachers and the flexibility you need to have on a daily basis. The collaboration aspect has been huge for me as I've been lucky enough to work with some outstanding educators who really helped me grow as a teacher. I've learned a great deal from my 3 cooperating teachers, but there have been many others along the way who have given me some great guidance. Flexibility has also been key for me, in terms of working with students, planning, and working on a daily basis. Being flexible with students is something I want to make sure I do throughout my entire career, while still maintaining order in the classroom setting. I've also learned that things will pop up from time to time and you just have to roll with it and adjust as needed.
Two takeaways I had from the alumni panel were the need to be patient and to stay positive throughout the job search process. Being patient will be difficult for me, but I know that this will ultimately lead to a great job as long as I am working hard throughout the process. Staying positive is something that will be easy for me, but it will be very important to not lose sight of that.
In terms of final items that I am working on, I need to complete my portfolio still. Otherwise, I am basically wrapped up with the student teaching process, which is a great thing.
In terms of communicating with my college supervisor, I just want to thank her for all of her help this semester. She's been a tremendous asset in terms of providing me with guidance and giving positive, constructive feedback that has helped me for great classroom habits. I am truly grateful.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Blog Post 7
Now that I am nearing the end of my student teaching experience, I want to make sure there is a smooth transition back to my cooperating teacher so that the students don't miss a beat. Some tasks I want to complete are:
-finish any outstanding grading from work I have assigned
-wrap up my Great Depression learning segment while preparing students for the DBQ segment we will be starting.
During my student teaching experience, I think my greatest growth experience has been with gaining rapport with students. I don't want to say that I didn't experience this when working with high school students, but I've definitely been able to gain a much stronger rapport with many of the eighth graders I am teaching. I've been blessed with great students who are really good kids, and it has been awesome to get to know them a bit. Even more, it means a lot to know that the students look up to me and that I have the ability to have a positive impact on their daily lives.
This is one of the things that I will miss most about working with the students in my classroom. Additionally, I will miss seeing a positive response from them when working on activities during class. I love being able to see instant feedback from the students judging on how they respond to daily tasks, as this allows me to both tweak future lessons and grow as an educator. Overall, I will miss having fun with the kids. We always were able to get work done and accomplish our goals for the day, but we usually had fun doing it. One of my favorite things about working with junior high students is knowing that each day would be an absolute blast.
In terms of my edTPA, my obviously done with it as of now. I still had a bit left last Monday though (when the blog was due), but I was able to wrap it up well. I am worried, however, that I may not have done a good job on it. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't answering what the prompts wanted, but I did my best to answer each question when evaluating each task.
-finish any outstanding grading from work I have assigned
-wrap up my Great Depression learning segment while preparing students for the DBQ segment we will be starting.
During my student teaching experience, I think my greatest growth experience has been with gaining rapport with students. I don't want to say that I didn't experience this when working with high school students, but I've definitely been able to gain a much stronger rapport with many of the eighth graders I am teaching. I've been blessed with great students who are really good kids, and it has been awesome to get to know them a bit. Even more, it means a lot to know that the students look up to me and that I have the ability to have a positive impact on their daily lives.
This is one of the things that I will miss most about working with the students in my classroom. Additionally, I will miss seeing a positive response from them when working on activities during class. I love being able to see instant feedback from the students judging on how they respond to daily tasks, as this allows me to both tweak future lessons and grow as an educator. Overall, I will miss having fun with the kids. We always were able to get work done and accomplish our goals for the day, but we usually had fun doing it. One of my favorite things about working with junior high students is knowing that each day would be an absolute blast.
In terms of my edTPA, my obviously done with it as of now. I still had a bit left last Monday though (when the blog was due), but I was able to wrap it up well. I am worried, however, that I may not have done a good job on it. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't answering what the prompts wanted, but I did my best to answer each question when evaluating each task.
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