Student Teaching Reflection 9

This week, my mentor teacher showed several videos to her classes, and I got to see how she utilizes video as a tool for her teaching. One thing that I thought was very productive was that she had students in one class complete several questions after watching the video to make sure they got something out of it. This forced students to pay attention to the information in the video as well as reflect on it afterward. Some videos that she showed this week were mostly informative, while others were very engaging as well. It was easy to see that students got more out of the more engaging videos, and I noticed that the less interesting videos were only shown in her advanced classes. This makes sense, because these classes are mainly Seniors who have higher expectations and are preparing for college. A video like that would not be productive in her lower level classes, because these students are much less intrinsically motivated by the information and need a little extra help engaging.

Student Teaching Reflection 8

This week, I observed some commonalities in my mentor teacher's practices throughout her classes regardless of their ages and academic levels that I found interesting. The first was in how she goes over tests or quizzes. She uses a program to score her multiple choice questions that records how many students got each question correct as well as what percentage of students chose each of the responses. Once she has this information, she looks to see if there are some common misconceptions or reasons students might be getting questions wrong. When she discusses the tests in class, she uses this information to determine which questions to go over in detail and how to address misconceptions. For example, one common mistake on one question was that all of the students who answered incorrectly chose "D. All of the above." She made sure to point out that this could be solved by reading the questions more carefully, and she let the students know that "all of the above" is clearly not always correct in her class. Another teaching practice that I think is helpful for her classes is that she writes a "Do Now" task on the board for each class. Sometimes this is a question that they need to think about or find the answer to, and sometimes it is a task they need to do to prepare for the lesson. This helps get all of the students on task, and in the classes with Juniors and Seniors, often the students are prepared when the bell rings to start class.

In the Anatomy class, I also got to see a guest speaker come in and speak to the class this week. The speaker was a Forensic Biologist. I thought this was a cool way to showcase a career that could come out of a Biology degree, since a lot of the students in Anatomy enjoy the sciences. It also helped the students see some real-world applications of the topics they are learning about. In addition, the students were engaged because it was a different experience than a regular class period.

Student Teaching Reflection 7

This week, on Tuesday, I had my first observation. During the class period that I was being observed, my mentor teacher first introduced the topic with a question to get the students thinking: “What is a similarity between photosynthesis and cellular respiration?” The students had already had lessons on both photosynthesis and cellular respiration, so they were familiar with the equations for both and the purposes for both. The students talked in groups about this questions for several minutes and then the teacher asked for their ideas. She guided the students to think about the commonality of energy in both processes. Once the class had discussed the question, we passed out the POGIL (worksheet) and split the class into 3 groups. My mentor teacher, her co-teacher, and I each took a group and guided them through the POGIL. Given my background in tutoring, I was very comfortable with this small-group setting and was able to use questioning to guide students through the POGIL. This class is typically hard to keep on track and unmotivated to complete work in class, but this small-group setting helped them focus and kept them accountable for their work. I was able to help them come to the correct answers on the POGIL, and I was able to use questions to spark discussion beyond the questions on the POGIL.

This Thursday, I also got to see a class play Kahoot. This experience was as entertaining as it was helpful. The teacher offered lollipops to the top three scorers during the game, so the students were working hard to get a high score. This competition could potentially help improve the students’ speed in recalling information, it helps them practice their vocabulary, and it increases their motivation. After each question, the teacher addressed any incorrect answers and offered tips to help students get answers correct next time (ex. oris sounds like oral because they are both related to the mouth). A downside of review games like this is that it does not allow for deeper thinking; the questions are only multiple choice. This is good when reviewing for part of a test or reviewing things like vocabulary, but not when studying for tests that require a lot of critical thinking or applying concepts to new situations. Keeping this in mind, I would definitely use Kahoot in my own teaching because it is still valuable practice and it did improve the students’ motivation.

Student Teaching Reflection 6

This week I spent three full days at my school. During these three days, I got to interact with the students and assist with some lessons. The teacher whose classroom I am in has 4 classes that are very well-behaved, do their work, and are actively engaged. The final 2 classes have many students who dislike school and dislike Biology. Because of this, these classes provide more challenges in terms of classroom management. I have found it very difficult to help my mentor teacher and her co-teacher keep these students on task and engaged in the class. My mentor teacher and her co-teacher have experience and confidence that helps them control classroom behavior, but I have found that the students do not yet respond to me in the same way. I have observed several things that help the teachers with their classroom management. First, they both are very consistent in their expectations and their follow-through. They tell students specifically how they are expected to behave in class and let them know what will happen if they fail to behave correctly. Second, they use classroom activities to help motivate students to be respectful and engaged in class. For example, if students are too loud and not paying attention while the class is working together through a worksheet, then they will do it individually. These consequences do not affect what the students are working on, simply how they are allowed to work. The last thing that I have observed that helps these teachers with their classroom management is their confidence. It is clear to me, and I'm sure it's clear to the students, that these teachers will not tolerate misbehavior. This confidence helps the students respect them and follow directions. This trait is more difficult to emulate than the other 2 because I believe this confidence comes with experience.

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.