Week 17

   My final week of student teaching was a great week, though it was a sad week of course as well. I started off the week observing in second grade, which was great. I was able to observe the male teacher I observed last week who I really enjoyed watching teach as his style was much different from many of the female teachers who I had seen teach in the previous weeks. During this week I was also able to observe some of the Special Education teachers at my school as well which was a great experience. I have never been able to observe Special Education teachers in a general education setting before so the opportunity to do was great and allowed me to see what another type of really great job looks like in a normal setting.

   Throughout the rest of the week I was able to observe in some other classes such as fourth and fifth grade while also still spending some time in my own room in the afternoons, so that the students would not completely forget about me :). Friday we were able to have a bit of a party for my going away, which was really great. I was given a scrapbook, pictures, school supplies, and some other great things with my students. I was able to take pictures with each of my students which I really enjoyed and it was great to see all of them one more time. I also was able to give them each gifts, including notes that I wrote all of them which they greatly enjoyed seeing. Friday my school also needed to use me as a sub for their P.E. classes during the day so my last day of student teaching was actually filled with P.E. classes and a Skype interview for a district about thirty minutes away. So my last day of student teaching was one of my most crazy days at school, but still a great day.

    This placement was so great, I enjoyed so much each of the days and all of the students as well as the many teachers I worked with. I cannot believe that student teaching and my time at Trinity is completed, but I look forward to the future and to finally becoming a full teacher, instead of just having student or aide status!

Week 16

   So, one more week remains in student teaching, it is remarkable to me how normal and routine student teaching feels now as compared to the start of this semester. At the start of this semester, the idea of teaching all day was frightening and hard to comprehend. Now, even after full-time teaching is over it's hard to think of those times and remember how ridiculous it seemed to go all day, every day, to student teaching and to eventually be completely in charge of a classroom. Now, after I am finished with my teaching, (this week I'm just observing and assisting), it feels strange to not teach and to not be in charge of what is happening in the classroom. I suppose that is the point of student teaching though, to take students with small amounts of experience in the classroom and give them a whole load more of experience while also mimicking what having a real job will be like in the future.
   This week was a really good week of student teaching. Each morning I observed in a different classroom or a few classrooms, then, in the afternoon I taught math and literacy, so it was a nice transition out of full time teaching while also a great opportunity to see other classrooms and other styles of teaching. On Monday I was able to go to the other two third grade classrooms so that I could compare how my class did things compared to these classes. There were quite a few differences even though we teach almost exactly the same content. So it was interesting to see how these different learning styles worked and looked differently from teacher to teacher and classroom to classroom. I definitely found some things that I liked, especially some classroom management techniques, while also some things that I did not like, also classroom management techniques. One thing that I observed in each classroom relatively easily was the atmosphere of the room. One of the other third grades had a very almost stagnant and sleepy feel to it. There was almost no noise in the classroom and even though the room was the same shape as my own classroom, it felt very empty and almost dark, it was not a good feeling. The other third grade had a good feeling about it, but I still think that my classroom has the best atmosphere and the best feeling about it :). Tuesday I observed in first grade, the first time I have ever worked with first graders. This classroom was crazy, some would possibly describe it as chaos. The teacher did a good job and I think she was an effective teacher, but wow, what a morning that was. This observation helped me to decide that I don't think I will attempt to be a 1st grade teacher! Wednesday the school needed me to be a paraprofessional in the morning for one of our students with special needs because the normal para was out sick. This was an interesting experience and allowed me to see a little of what the life of a paraprofessional is like. It was fun to work with this student, but I did not like that I couldn't really help out in instruction at all as the paraprofessional, especially after I was so used to teaching all of the time.
     Thursday I observed in a second grade class and I loved it! The teacher is a man and it was great to see another man teach younger students. His classroom management style was super and definitely what I hope to emulate when I teach. It was a really great experience for me to see how he taught and how a male teacher can really thrive teaching younger students. I think that it was helpful to see how he interacted and taught students differently than many female teachers do and I really saw a lot in how he taught about respect in the classroom and a solid work ethic that I really hope to also teach to my future students, so this was definitely my favorite observation time.
    Friday I observed my own cooperating teacher and just watched more closely how she taught after not seeing her teach for a few weeks. It was interesting to see how the students reacted differently to how she taught compared to when I teach, that was something that I did not expect, but it made sense as well just based off of our different teaching styles.
   I was really pleased with this week and I look forward to the coming week where I will be able to more observing and spend a final weeks with my students. Now of course comes the tough part of student teaching as well, the job search. I have been applying for months already and have submitted probably about 40-50 job applications, if not more. I am worried in a way about not finding a job but I think that that is also a pretty normal worry for seniors about to graduate! I can't wait to start interviewing and at least making some progress in this job search!

Week 15

    This week of student teaching was my last week of full time teaching during student teaching. We had Monday off for Easter break so it was a shorter week. Though this week wasn't as crazy as last week (because of the MAP testing), it was still a week filled with a number of different events and themes happening. On Tuesday we had Earth Day, meaning that a number of our activities were based around Earth Day and conservation overall. We were able to fill some pots and plant some flowers as a class and the students really enjoyed learning more about plants and about how planting works. I was very surprised at how little many of the students knew about gardening and really outdoor skills at all. I think that in an area such as this, outdoor skills are something of a forgotten art, mainly because many students no longer need these skills in their lives.
    My teaching this week went well overall. I think that sometimes when I am teaching it is easy to get caught up in the students' misbehaviors and to just constantly be reprimanding students or discipling them, because often some days there are just a lot of behaviors. But constantly reprimanding students is not fun for me or the students and not a good use of time either, so that is something that I feel that I must be careful about in my teaching. It is important to make sure that I am keeping a fair record with students, but also praising them throughout the day, making sure that they know that I am proud of their success and hopefully helping them achieve success in their lives as well. I think that it is more difficult to be positive all of the time with students, mainly because often positive reinforcement seems to reap less results overall in behavior than negative behavior management may. But, I believe strongly that positively encouraging and working with students is so much more powerful than negatively working with them. Also, it seems that often the culture in schools is to be negative with students, to yell at them, and to reprimand them often. That seems to be what many teachers rely on, but I strongly believe that positively working with student will work well much better for everyone involved.
    On Friday, we had Grandparent's Day at school. Many of the teachers at my school were dreading this day and I was not sure why, but I realized why once the day happened. The day was quite chaotic. Grandparents were walking around the school all day and the school was packed with students and grandparents alike. Transitions were very difficult to make happen as the hallways were so full and there were so many people around in the school. It was enjoyable to see some of the students so proud of showing their grandparents our school and our class and I enjoyed meeting all of them. But whenever routine goes out the window, often so does students' focus and behavior in the classroom. Because of this, it was more difficult to help students focus on the events of the day, but overall it was still a different day which can be fun to work through as well and learn about another aspect in the lives of teachers.

Week 14

   This week of student teaching went well overall, this was my third week of full time student teaching. One very interesting factor that was thrown into teaching this week was MAP testing. MAP testing took place for three days last week. MAP testing is achievement testing that takes place three times a year in many school districts, it also takes place exclusively on computers. This testing happens three times a year so that students and teachers can track their progress through the year and see where they grow and hopefully what areas they need to improve on. The students seem to enjoy this type of testing more than ISAT testing, maybe just because it is viewed with less pressure than ISATS and they also get to do this testing on the computers which they often feel more comfortable with. Many of the students did really well on the testing and almost all students improved in their scores from their previous tests that they did during the Winter. This was encouraging to see in the students and they also enjoyed seeing their improvements.
   Teaching this week went well overall, I think that with each week of my student teaching I am able to grow in my confidence in my teaching abilities, and improve in some of the tools and techniques that I use. Of course, there are days where lessons do not go as planned or do not go well, but I think that as I have been teaching a little longer, I have also been able to have more patience with students, but also learn how to problem solve problems that come up while I am teaching and while I am in the classroom. I think that I have also been able to improve in my relationships with the other teachers in my building as well as they get more used to my time in the classroom and get used to my contributions in the classroom. I enjoy the feeling of being a real teacher and being used in the classroom, of actually being useful and being in charge of my students learning, that is a great feeling and one that I am excited to get used to as well.
    Of course, being a student teacher I can be difficult as well as students are not used to the student teacher and are not quite sure how to interact with student teachers all of the time. I think this comes out in my students respecting me at times. Almost all of my students are really great with respecting me and respecting what I ask them to do, but a few of the students who are a little more rebellious, even in third grade, sometimes need reminders that I am a teacher and that I am not just a college student learning to teach, though that is true. Because of this, I had a few moments last this week where I asked the students to do a certain action, or to follow certain instructions and they struggled in respecting what I asked them to do, instead they did a little of the eye rolling or a little of the attitude often seen in older students. I definitely talked to them and to the class right away, relaying to them once again that they needed to respect me and respect what I asked them to do.

Week 13

    This week of student teaching was my second week of full-time teaching. I would say that overall the entire week was a success, but there were definitely bumps along the road as well. At the beginning of the week I had a job interview which was my first real job interview, it went well, and it was exciting to have a real interview and have a school actually interested in me. So overall that was a very exciting event that took place besides my teaching. My teaching went well this week too. I was able to teach about area and perimeter for most of the week in math, do a large amount of science experiments in science, and teach the kids about poetry. This all led up to Friday where we had three assessments in different subjects for the students. The assessments did not go well overall. The social studies assessment was open book so the students that did poorly on that assessment really just have themselves to blame, considering all of the answers were in just a few pages, but most students did well on that assessment. We also had a math and a poetry assessment. The poetry assessment was a very big deal in our class and we had been telling the kids for two weeks to study, had given them a review guide, and had reviewed with the students exactly what they would need to know for the assessment the day before. Yet, many of them still failed or go D's on this assessment. That was very difficult for me as I had taught the entire poetry unit to them. My teacher assured me that I taught it well and that she would not have taught it differently, it was just a matter of the students not studying for the assessment. But even after hearing this, it was still tough for me to see my students fail in this large assessment. Many of the students also did poorly on the math assessment on Friday. I had only reviewed with them these concepts so my teacher and I shared the blame a bit on this, but we still felt as if the students should have done better, just judging by how much time we spent going over concepts and teaching these concepts in what I thought were interesting and engaging ways. So overall Friday was a rough day, because of the pretty poor results from the assessments that our students took part in.
    I think that something difficult for me in this process was just the fact that in my experiences thus far I have never had students really do poorly after learning something that I had taught. I know that it is something that must happen at certain points in a teacher's career, but it was still very difficult to handle. Teaching after finding these scores was also difficult. I knew that I needed to stay upbeat and excited but that was very hard after seeing those discouraging results and knowing that the students could have done much better, but also that I could have likely taught in a different way so that they would have learned more effectively and remembered more of the information overall. Because of this I think that I really went through some new experiences this week related to finding out some new things about the hardships of teachers and maybe one of the more difficult times that teacher's go through, when their students do not do well. We sent the scores home and asked the students to study over the weekend and we will be re-testing them on Monday and Tuesday to hopefully better scores. The plan is to average out the two scores so that hopefully we can get a idea of what they really know  and how well they know the material overall.

Week 12

    Our Spring Break being finished, I came back to school to start my full-time teaching. Of course I had done full-time teaching before at my first placement, but full time teaching in general education is so much different than teaching in special education. Full time teaching in third grade requires much longer days, much more preparation, and being able to work through many more transitions and events each day. This being said, I have been really enjoying my time in 3rd grade and maybe even more importantly I have been feeling that I have really been growing in my teaching and improving in my teaching skills overall. I would say that I've especially been learning more in the areas of classroom management, time management, and just being able to explain concepts well to my students. I think this is because my first special education placement did not have as much teaching as we usually think of teaching (where the teacher explains concepts to the students and teaches them as a large group). Because of this, my teaching has been more difficult and definitely tiring (those are long days) but definitely rewarding and enjoyable.

   This week the most difficult part of my days has been in the afternoon. Our schedule is set up so that we teach a higher number of subjects in the morning for shorter amounts of time, as well as having a break during which the students go off to gym or music. But in the afternoon, we only have two subjects, math and literacy. These subject are each an hour and fifteen minutes long which can really take it's toll on both me as a teacher, but definitely also my students. So often our time in the afternoon is the most difficult part of the day, but I have found that by bringing in more creation based projects in math or just movement-oriented activities the afternoons can be much more enjoyable for both my students and myself. 

   Another enjoyable part about this week was our school's talent show. Our students were able to participate in this talent show on Thursday and Friday at our school and as a school body we were able to watch the talent show on Thursday. I was so impressed with the students in my class and the great talents they and to share. I always enjoy seeing my students participating in things that are not directly academic related, as it shows another side of our students and who they really are and what talents they really have besides those related to the classroom. 

   Friday was also a really constructive day for me. I asked our principal if he would work through a practice interview with me so that I could have some experience and know-how for upcoming interviews that I have. This was a really great experience and very helpful for me as well. We did an interview where the questions are all written out for the administration and then the answers are scored depending on certain words or ideas the candidate uses in their response, kind of like a rubric, I think the system was called Ventures or something like that. Anyways, it went well, there were really a high number of questions, it took over an hour. But I think that this practice interview gave me some important experience with interviewing, interview questions, and hopefully helped take care of some of the nervousness that usually comes along with interviews. It also let me interact with my principal and he was able to get to know me a little more which was great. 

   Overall I would say that this week went really great for my first week of full time teaching. I really enjoyed being in control of the class all day, it was really tiring, but still a really great week that I think was definitely a success as well. I will be full time teaching for all of April so I have a lot of teaching to look forward to, but I think that it will go well and I look forward to it as well overall I would say. 

Week 11

    Week 11 has came and went, but another solid week of teaching has also came and went. Monday I was not at school as I was at my grandma's funeral in Wisconsin so I was at school for four days this week instead of five. This week I taught all of the morning subjects, which includes Daily Language, Social Studies, Science, and Literacy Studio. I would say that I felt pretty well prepared for each day of my teaching as most of these subjects have been mostly straight forward to teach. We have a curriculum that we follow for Science, Social Studies, Daily Language so for these subjects I basically follow our curriculum which makes preparation for these classes straightforward. Literacy Studio is kind of a cool idea in my opinion. Basically it is an hour and a half of students independently working on reading and writing goals. Students make reading goals with the teacher about once a month which is recorded in a binder by both the teacher and the student. Then, during Literacy Studio, students work on these reading goals, do independent reading, and work on other writing and reading activities such as blogging on the class blog or writing stories. I really like this activity because it gives the students a lot of choice in their work activities and also encourages them to get large amounts of reading in, which really helps with their love of reading and their concentration on these reading goals. The students really focus well on these goals and usually get a lot of reading and goal work done in this time, which would be surprising for some third graders, but these students really can focus and work well on these goals. Students also receive incentives for finishing their reading goals, such as class cash, and pizza certificates to Pizza Hut for each goal they finish.
   On Wednesday I was able to teach completely independently in the class again, my teacher was called over to the fifth grade classroom to sub for an hour and a half so I was able to teach without my teacher in the room which as Dr. Snoeyink said last week is really a great opportunity whenever it happens and I think something that is constructive to my teaching. This week I have continued to work on my behavior management with the students. I think that it is going well, but a large part of that is also because of the routines and procedures that have been laid out by my teacher. I have been attempting to keep track of these procedures and routines in order to use them in my future classroom as well.
   Thursday was an interesting day at school as well, the choir was going around to all the schools in the district putting on a concert so all but one of the girls in our class were absent all day, meaning that we only had 8 students! At the end of the day we were able to go to our choir's concert which was really great. I was so impressed by them and really felt so proud of my student's work in choir and their great talent. Friday Mrs. Hysell was able to come and observe my social studies lesson which I think went well and I enjoyed meeting with her. My hope is that you will now be able to understand a little more about my class now that you have met them and seen them in action Mrs. Hysell. This week really helped me in my confidence to begin full-time teaching which begins next week (this week is Spring Break). Full-time teaching will of course lead to a large amount of preparation each day, but I think that it will be very rewarding once I get into the swing of teaching. This week has also been filled with job applications as so many job opportunities have been coming up as of late. Job applications really get tedious after awhile but it feels good to at least get my name and information out into the job world.