After just four days of attending
my placement school, I can tell I am going to enjoy these students, my mentor
teacher, and the school itself. When I tell people I’m going to be working with
middle school students, their first reaction is usually a wrinkled nose
followed by, “Wow, you’re really brave”. For me, the choice between middle and
high school was easy. I am so excited to be working with this age group for the
next year – they’re young enough that they still think you’re cool, but old enough
to have those meaningful discussions teachers love to facilitate. J Throughout the next
year in my placement school I hope to accomplish several goals, both academic
and professional:
Learning how to
effectively manage class time
I am
constantly asking myself, “How long will this take?” while planning my lessons.
Ultimately, I have almost always failed at predicting how much time the
activities I plan will take. Since middle schools have such short periods, time
management is a crucial aspect of planning and carrying out my lessons. By the
end of the year, I hope to efficiently plan for activities that make the most
out of my students’ time and my own. Of course, this also means being
comfortable with adjusting my plans if needed.
Integrating and
reflecting on my use of literacy strategies, lesson planning, classroom
management, and assessment
In
planning my lessons, I want to be able to incorporate everything I have learned
throughout my pre-student teaching experiences. OK, maybe not everything; but if I don’t at least step
outside the box and try new things now, I’m not going to try them when I have
my own classroom. Along with planning and practicing these tools for teaching,
it will take time to reflect on the successes and opportunities for improvement
after each lesson, day, unit, assessment, etc. This year is the time I have to
make mistakes, learn from my failures, and put abstract ideas into concrete
experiences.
Establishing
connections with future and current English teachers and administrators
Getting
to know my fellow pre-student teaching candidates, mentor teacher, and school
administrators is the perfect way to network and gain access to resources. Although
this seems obvious, it takes more effort than just meeting everyone you are
working with. By the end of my student teaching, I hope to have professional
relationships with teachers and administrators in the community to whom I can
seek out advice and ideas.
Somehow, by the end of this crazy year I will *hopefully* be an actual, real-life teacher. I can't wait to see what challenges, successes, and experiences this year will bring.
