This week has been about 500% better compared to last week! My teacher has been super great and helpful. She's pushing me just enough to get more comfortable in the classroom, and also giving me plenty of feedback so I don't feel too anxious. I've slowly become more and more incorporated into the classes by teaching small groups. I really like the small group study sessions because I feel comfortable teaching one-on-one and I get to know the students a lot better. I've also realized that the more I get to know students the better, the more they keep you grounded and help get you through the day. I'm definitely starting to feel more and more like I'm actually a teacher, rather than a student trying to pretend to be a teacher. The struggles I'm having right now is that my teacher hasn't been in today and she won't make it tomorrow, so I'm in charge again. It's definitely going better than last week, but I am actually teaching her algebra 2 classes. However since my first day of teaching a class was supposed to be today, my teacher hasn't been able to give me any feedback. I think I'm struggling a lot with teaching to the kids who get it, and leaving the ones who don't behind. This is mainly because the students who get it will start talking and disrupting the class if I don't move on quick enough. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated!
This week I feel a lot more comfortable teaching in front of the entire classroom. This has a lot to do with starting out teaching to small groups like 2-3, then doing a group with 8, then going to the whole class. I've also gotten to know at least 5 names in each class, and it's been easier for me to remember them from day to day then I thought I would. Overall I think I'm just a lot more excited to go to school and get to know the students, and teach more.
Moving forward I really need to work on application of content. I really just need to find ways to keep the students who got it engaged while I slow things down for the students who need me to work out more problems or explain something again. Once my teacher is able to see me teach and provide some feedback, I'm hoping this will help me to teach to all the levels of learning in the classroom.
I appreciate your comments about getting mentor teacher feedback. You may want to consider recording a lesson or portion of a lesson. The recording can be shared with your mentor, field supervisor, peers, and/or me for feedback. This is also helpful for self-reflection.
ReplyDeleteWhat have you addressed on the internship checklist (Canvas, Files)?
Internship checklist! Completely forgot! Looking over the internship checklist I've met the principal for the freshman academy shortly because she came into our class once to talk to the students about getting feedback about freshman academy. My mentor teacher has also given me the giant algebra 2 teachers edition that I can use as a resource for my unit (never realized how giant and heavy those books are). The best thing I've done from the checklist so far is meeting department colleagues. My teacher has two other math teachers right across from her classroom, so every day when we stand out in the hall during passing periods I'm able to interact with them. They were extremely helpful whenever my teacher hasn't been able to make it to school. One of them I'm even using their classroom to teach a small group every 5th hour. They're another great resource that I can talk to and hear about how they run their classrooms. I've also met another math teacher who is farther away in the building, but she has already extended an invitation to visit her classroom anytime and call her if I ever need help.
DeleteHi, Natalie! I totally relate to the problem of keeping the students who get the material from being bored while not moving too fast for the students who do not get it as quickly. If I see students struggling a lot while I teach I make sure to go to them while they are working on their daily assignments, even if they don't ask me for help, to answer specific questions or offer more explanations and make sure they understand what is going on. How do you plan on working on application of content in your teaching?
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the feedback April! I love how easy it is to tell of students are understanding things, by the look on their face. I think one thing with application, is the more I get to teach the more I notice my mistakes or realize that there is a better way of explaining something. I think every day I'm making little steps to getting better. Also I got a lot from Jenn's post in showing how I wasn't really prepared to teach the content. I'm working through the material each night now, and that's helping me to be more confident in the way I teach.
DeleteHi Natalie- one strategy you could try is to ask students to see how many different ways they can solve a particular problem (of course you'd need a problem with many different ways to solve it). But this will keep your mroe edvanced kids engaged as they try to find different solutions while thoe who struggle might only find one. Then you can call on stuggling students to share their (single) method first, and more advanced students to show alternate methods afterwards, so everyone gets to participate.
ReplyDeleteLike April said, I can understand the problem of keeping the more advanced students engaged while still trying to explain/teach the rest of the class. I had a similar experience while explaining limits, and it was really stressful. One thing I did that kind of helped was ask some of the students who understood to help me explain it to the rest of the class.
ReplyDeleteFor application of content, what are some things you are hoping to do and incorporate into the classroom? Have you thought about doing any group activities?
I definitely want to incorporate more group work into my unit. I think this would help a lot with getting students to be more engaged the whole class period, as well as them learning to better help each other. I also want to do better engagements at the beginning of each lesson. The teacher right now just has them doing a little bellwork assignment, but that doesn't really get them excited about math. I also think just finding my own unique teaching style through more practice will help a lot. Right now I feel like I'm copying quite a bit from my teacher, because I'm still a bit unsure of myself.
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