Student Teaching Journal |
2/22/2021 0 Comments 2/22/2021 Week 5 & 6The last two weeks were by far my most challenging yet, but also the most rewarding. Now that we are in the thick of my first student teaching placement, and students have been back in person for over a month, there are classroom management related things that I have had to handle. There have been days where it feels like everyone in the class is talking during instruction, not listening and distracting each other. During these days I have had to learn to be authoritative and address both the class as a whole and specific individuals to redirect. I have found timers, counting down from 5, pausing my instruction with silence and using wait time to get 100% attention. However, there are still times it feels like nothing works!
Other days, it feels like I am teaching to an empty room, and it is a struggle to get participation. For this, I have found that using turn and talks to get students thinking, and then using cold call to ask “What did you or your partner share?” Despite these challenging days, there are also super rewarding days. I am feeling so much more confident using my teacher voice and giving instruction effectively. I also feel like I have stronger relationships with my students now which is one of the best parts in my opinion. I also feel much more confident now if talking to students who are struggling either academically or behaviorally, and having a conservation to either help them understand, or ask what is going on and what would help them to stay engaged. Having these conversations also helps me to plan lessons with these students’ needs in mind. These two weeks have really emphasized the importance of building relationships with students and how rewarding and effective it can be. However, I have also learned that no matter how great or strong of a relationship you have with your students, there will still be days where it is challenging to get engagement or attention. These last two weeks of my first placement, I really want to continue practicing classroom management skills, and having conversations to help my students.
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2/8/2021 0 Comments 2/8/2021 Weeks 3 and 4In my third week of student teacher, I started to gain a lot of confidence and build relationships with the students. In a normal year, the school operates on a block system with alternating red and white days. However, since being back in person, we have had to operate on a two week system due to Covid safety guidelines. Because of this, my 2nd and 3rd week were both white weeks, where we were seeing the same class periods everyday for 2 weeks in a row. Since my 3rd week was with the same group of students, I really started to get to know them. I learned names and started to build individual relationships with each student which ultimately helped my confidence. This also came in handy when grading, because I had a better understanding of each individual student’s abilities and background. One challenge with this however, is that I do not get to build the same relationship with the students who are remote. It is difficult to build personal relationships with them and see their process. However, grading and getting to see their portfolios of prior work did help me get an understanding of their skills and personalities.
In my fourth week, we switched to red weeks. I had met the red day students only twice in my first week when we were fully remote, but it was over Zoom so the majority had their cameras off and I did not get much interaction with them. This meant learning names and building relationships all over again. However, having taught in person for two weeks already gave me the confidence to jump in and know how to interact. Therefore, I quickly learned names and build relationships with students. In addition, a new group of students meant I was teaching the same lessons I had already taught two weeks ago. Therefore, teaching was a lot smoother and I was able to make adjustments based on how it went with the white day students. One challenge was that after having been in person for two weeks already, not only was I more confident, but so were the kids. Although they were not in art class for those two weeks prior, they were still in the school building taking their white day classes. Thus, they came in much more confident to push the boundaries and speak out. This was a benefit in the sense that we were able to have more engaging whole class discussions, and it was easier to understand students’ unique personalities, however, it proved challenging when they would be off task or talk while I was talking. This showed me that I need to work on my authority. Students will test what they can get away with and if I don’t set those expectations right off the bat, it will be harder to manage in the future. I am going into my 5th week now, and it is my second week with my red day students. For this week I really want to get better and getting 100% before giving instruction, using wait time, and using my teacher voice to get attention. |
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May 2021
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