Week 3

So far, each week that I’ve spent with students at school has felt slightly different than the week before or following. Much of the first week was spent adjusting to life in the classroom with students. Whether working at an after school program, observing for a few hours in someone else’s classroom, or now, student teaching all day, I’ve noticed that I need a few days, initially, to adjust from my adult, relatively quiet life, to life with a roomful of noisy, rambunctious, bright, young, spirited students.

I spent most of the second week adjusting my lesson plans and feeling out my classroom management skills with the freshman class. By the end of that week I was feeling good about where I was headed with the freshman, in terms of pace and rigor. I knew that I had some pretty big steps to take until I felt like both the students and I were moving in the right direction and pace, but I felt like I could see the goal and was taking the right steps to get there. In terms of classroom management, the second week was filled with some challenges (bad transitioning on my part and disruptive students), a few victories (differentiating learning for different learning paces and styles), and an overall feeling that this classroom, these students, and this environment were right where I needed and wanted to be. Prior to my placement, I knew that I would meet unexpected and new challenges but I was and am continually thankful for this time to develop my management skills with other educators supporting me and giving me feed back. I know that these challenges will make me a better teacher and I am eager to learn how I effectively handle them.

This third week started out to be somewhat disappointing because of the fact that I had spent much of week two getting to know the freshman, restructuring lessons to fit their needs, and reevaluating my classroom management style specifically for the freshman only to learn over the weekend that I would no longer be teaching the them because of scheduling changes. I had taken a lot of ownership, effort, and planning in the freshman class and knowing that I would not to be able to see them all the way to the end of the semester felt anticlimactic.

In addition, I felt somewhat strange taking over the eighth grade class, which replaced my freshman class because I had to jump in and start teaching in the middle of the unit. I more or less piggybacked off of my coop’s lessons for the start of the week. Toward the end of the week, my lesson was structured slightly different from my coop (who is teaching the seventh grade the same unit). By next week I will be introducing a new unit with both the seventh and eighth graders and expect to feel more ownership in the lesson.

Despite a few set backs and some disappointment at the start of the week due to losing the freshman class, I don’t have much to report on teaching the eighth grader, in terms of classroom management. They are a dream! There are of course times I have to redirect and remind them to listen to their peers or me, but overall they are wonderful students to work with. From observation, I’m expecting that the seventh graders will also be a great class to work with and I’m excited to have two classes to compare and contrast what works and what doesn’t.