Blog Post 5

One word to describe my past week was fulfilling. I finished up my first 10-week placement with Miss. Glass’s fourth grade class. It was sort of a slow week since the students had 2 hours of PARCC testing every day. After everything else they had to do, we only had time each day for writing and math in the afternoon. On my last day Friday, I had lunch with the students in the classroom and then went to recess with them. Even after only being in the classroom for 10 weeks, it was hard to say good-bye. The students were so sweet and wrote me letters telling me I was a great student teacher, which I will treasure. I promised to visit them again before the end of the year. I had such a great experience there and feel very blessed and lucky for the opportunity to be in such a great classroom.

I feel fortunate to have learned so much about classroom management at my first placement. My cooperating teacher has high expectations set in place for behavior in the classroom, which were a great example for me. I plan to be much more confident and assertive in my own classroom. I realized that by having high classroom management expectations for students you are not being unkind or a “mean” teacher, but you are creating an environment for students that facilitates learning. Students cannot learn in an environment that is not conducive to respectful behaviors. Listening, taking turns speaking, and being considerate of others are the basis for what make meaningful learning possible.

My greatest growth experience has been my confidence. I was SO nervous teaching my first lesson. I’m so glad to be in a place where I am not nervous about what I am teaching. This enables me to be in a position where I can really listen to students and accommodate their learning needs.  This confidence also puts me in a place where I can change gears if I have to mid lesson or think of another example if I think the students need a bit more guidance. It definitely makes teaching more fun and a lot less stressful. I hope to continue with this comfort level at my next placement, which is in a special ed classroom. I really hope I can find ways to help the students and really make a positive difference for them.

Testing student understanding is an important part of teaching. Making sure we are testing students on the objectives and what they know is the fundamental goal of assessment. Learning should not be a competition.  It should be a teacher’s goal for every student to master the objectives, not for a select few smart ones. It is a teacher’s job to find the best ways to accomplish this goal.  Achievement ranking of students is not educating students, it puts them in a category that suppresses them. Perhaps ranking information and standardized testing is useful in some capacity for education, but I feel it has no place in an everyday classroom.

I enjoyed my final classroom observation with Prof. Royster. I totally credit the students in my classroom for being so awesome and making my student teaching experience go so smoothly. I definitely was starting to feel very comfortable and finding my groove with the class and in the school in general. I’m not sure what my role will be at my next placement, since the dynamic will be very different in a contained sped classroom, but I’m excited to see what challenges it will bring and look forward to feedback at my next observation in a couple of weeks.