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.