Student Teaching Reflection 5

This week, I am finally in a classroom! I met my mentor teacher on Tuesday and observed her classes on Thursday. I was very happy to see the classes and interact with the students. I was able to help with a few of the lessons and began to get a feel for my mentor teacher's teaching style. One class that I am equally excited and anxious about is Conceptual Biology. This is a class for students who passed their biology class but did not pass the Biology Keystone (PA standardized test). These students had a test review on Thursday, and it was obvious that they were not excited about the content of the class. Many of these students find biology extremely challenging or are completely uninterested in the concepts. This provides a challenge for the teacher to make sure that these students remain motivated enough to learn and are able to easily understand the information. I am a bit uncertain about this class because I don't know if I will be able to provide that motivation and come up with fun activities to get the student involved. On the other hand, I am also looking forward to trying to find or create activities that will be a lot of fun and really help these students learn. Another class that I will be helping to teach is Anatomy and Physiology. I am very excited to teach this class because just in the one day that I have seen these students, they were very curious and brought up a lot of good questions. This class, I think, will lend itself very well to purposeful questioning. Overall, I am really looking forward to this experience, and I am excited to see what I will learn from it.

Student Teaching Reflection 4

This week, I am STILL not in a classroom, but I am finally in contact with the teacher who will be my mentor teacher, so hopefully my internship will begin within a week or 2. However, there have been some new programs introduced to the company I work for that have gotten me thinking about STEM, what it means, and how I will effectively integrate STEM concepts and practices into my teaching. The company that I work for offers before and after school care for students in grades K-6. Currently, they are pushing new activities and marketing the program as a STEAM program rather than just daycare. I, being a STEM-teacher-in-training, was immensely excited about this change and was really looking forward to hearing about some of the new activities that our curriculum directors were coming up with. I was then very disappointed to learn that the company would be using the same activities and just labeling them differently. Now, there is nothing wrong with the activities that we are given now, except that many of them do not promote some core STEM/STEAM practices like creativity or cooperation. The art projects given are simply colorless toys that the children color with sharpies, and many of the "science" or "engineering" activities don't give the kids any freedom to try their own ideas or test how things might work. I began to think about how this relates to our class discussion of purposeful questioning. The leaders in the company that I work for have the best intentions in finding or creating these activities, but in practice, the activities aren't meeting the standards that are expected in a STEM/STEAM activity. The same goes for purposeful questioning. A teacher can have the best intentions and expect great discussions and higher order thinking to come out of a question, but if it is not happening in practice, that teacher needs to re-evaluate the questioning. This entire situation at work made me even more aware that as a teacher, I will need to constantly evaluate whether my activities, questions, and assessments are doing what I want and expect them to do.

Student Teaching Reflection 3

This week, we discussed standards in ED 640 and I began to think about how standards will be implemented in my classroom during student teaching and when I become a teacher. Since I live in Pennsylvania, I am expecting my experience to be different than that of my classmates. Pennsylvania does not use the Common Core standards that Maryland does. Because of this, the standards that I use in my classroom may be different than what my classmates are using. I have also noticed that even though my classmates are all teaching in Maryland, even their experiences differ in terms of lesson and unit planning. I am looking forward to finding out what my school's expectations for standards and lesson planning will be.

Student Teaching Reflection 2

Since I am still not in a classroom yet, this week I have been thinking about how the concepts my class discussed last week may be applied in the future. Specifically, I have been trying to think of how I would apply extension activities in my future general education classroom, and how I can differentiate for students that are ahead as well as students that are not. Having extra extension activities already planned can be really valuable to help enrich the learning of students who finish their work early or get bored with general class material. If I have extension activities that bring in different real-world concepts or revolve around different topics, it can pique the interest of students and continue to engage them once they've finished the main activity. Having multiple extensions like this will cater to students with varying interests. However, it would be important to make sure that extensions push students further rather than just provide "busy-work." This level of planning will help to differentiate in class lessons for students who are working faster than the class average. For other students, these extension activities can still be valuable. If they don't have a chance to finish in class, I can give them the option of taking them home and completing the ones they find interesting. Since they will involve different topics, students will engage more and connect with material that they can relate to. Once I get to know my class, I can even create activities that relate concepts specifically to their interests. Extension activities can be a very valuable part of lesson planning, both for engagement and differentiation.

Student Teaching Reflection 1

This past week, as school has been starting, there are many aspects of my student teaching that I am looking forward to, and others that I am apprehensive of. Since I am not yet in a school, my biggest apprehension is that I do not know what to expect. I don’t yet know what grade I’ll be in, who my mentor teacher will be, or even what school I’ll be at. I am also worried that I will not be immediately successful. When approaching my internship I need to remember that my first few lessons will almost definitely not be completely successful, but I can learn from anything that doesn’t go smoothly or according to plan. I am most looking forward to meeting the students that I’ll be helping to teach this year. Having worked with children before, I think I will enjoy learning about my students’ interests and strengths and using these in my lesson plans. I am also looking forward to getting real-world experience applying the knowledge that I have accumulated throughout my education courses. Overall, I am excited to be viewing a classroom experience from the perspective of an instructor instead of a student.