Starting my student teaching this
month has been a great experience thus far. I had eagerly awaited the start of
student teaching and am ready to make my last semester the best one yet!
This is my first experience with
teaching seniors and though I was a little intimidated at first I have found my
college prep classes to be the highlight of my day. Currently they are reading
Oedipus Rex and the discussions in these classes are on a completely different
level than I have experienced in the high school setting thus far. Being able
to delve deeper into symbolism, motifs, etc. really inspires me to make more
varied and challenging lesson plans.
The
sophomore classes are a little more challenging than I had anticipated. A large
proportion of this class tends to be lax on their assignments, and a number of
students seem to not care about their grades at all. When planning assignments
for these classes a vast amount of time must be allotted for competition and
this I feel is disadvantageous to the few students who are excelling and able
to quickly finish their assignments. I would like to find a strategy that would
better help every student in this class reach their full potential instead of
limiting the information and holding back those that could obviously take on
harder challenges. Any suggestions or advice on this matter would be greatly
appreciated!
The honors freshman classes are
going as expected as I have been working with honors freshman with this CT
since core 2. Soon I will begin to teach Romeo and Juliet within these classes
and am greatly looking forward to it. This will be my first opportunity to
teach Shakespeare and planning for it has been a great experience. There are so
many different avenues and ideas to approach and selecting which I feel will be
best is sometimes be stressful. It seems I always have to cut things I wish to
do. I remember thinking planning for 80
minute class periods everyday would be challenging now I wish classes were
longer.
I had an interesting experience earlier
this week as Monday my CT lost her voice. I was thrown into teaching every
class for the day and had no preparation time. Though everything went
remarkably well it was a bit jarring at first. The first class I gave a lecture
with the aid of PowerPoint over Archetype. Though I had not previously seen the
PowerPoint I feel this is where understanding our content area really helps
come into play. By already having a strong grasp and knowledge of different
archetypes, I was able to lecture on them without feeling lost or worried.
Tuesday my CT had to take the day off and I was once again thrust into teaching
the days lessons. Luckily I was given a sub that didn’t interfere and spent the
day reading at the teacher’s desk. These two days of being able to have
complete control helped reinforce my belief that I truly want nothing more than
to be a teacher.
Though I know I will run into some
bumps this semester and it can’t possibly continue to go as smoothly as it has
thus far I am enjoying it while it lasts. I look forward to finishing my lesson
plans, seeing what goes well, and what does not, and most of all from learning
from my mistakes.
