Full Time Fun

Wow! Full time student teaching is so fun (and absolutely exhausting!) I think I would have to rate this week a 4. It's still so weird that I am actually full time teaching but I think I am slowly starting to get the hang of it. Being the leader in the classroom has really taught me a lot about taking responsibility for all of my learners.

One thing I got to observe this week was the chaos that came with an outbreak of head lice in an elementary school. As I am sure you could guess, our guided reading time became much more disorganized as students were being pulled left and right to get their heads checked. As crazy as this time was, it really gave me a great opportunity to observe standard 2E. My school was so good at getting in contact with parents about the situation and working collaboratively with them throughout the entire week to make sure everything was ok with each student. I have never been a part of an experience like this before so it was very informative for me.

Another new thing I did this week was teach an entire math unit and then assess my students on it. This made me a lot more nervous than I thought it would because I knew their assessments would reflect solely on my teaching and not mine and my CE's combined. However, as I looked at their tests, I was able to analyze my student's learning and seeing how well they did on the topic really reassured me. The whole experience really reminded me how important it is that I know the content I am teaching so that I can convey that knowledge to my students. Being able to reflect on my practice in this way and see the data was very helpful in planning for upcoming lessons.

I was also able to see a success in my math lessons that I feel relates to one of my goals this semester to get better at classroom management. My CE and I have struggled all year long to get our students to stay focused and engaged in our math lessons since they are at the very end of the day right after recess. This week, my CE and I came up with a really fun game that we play called Spleen (totally made that up at the last minute!) With Spleen, students get randomly put into groups and there is a new group each day. They must work together to not get any Spleens (or tallies) on the board. They can get tallies if they aren't paying attention, are talking, or just not on task. It's a group effort and at the end of the day the team with the least amount of points gets a treat. It's a great way to get students to work in teams and develop leadership qualities because they are all accountable. It has really helped math time go by much smoother!

With EdTPA coming up next week, I haven't focused my time on anything except for that so my portfolio has been put on hold until I can get through EdTPA. Next week, I hope to spend more time focusing on collecting more items for my portfolio. Right now, both my CE and I are a little nervous about next week and how everything will go. I don't think there are any specific questions regarding anything, just a little apprehension since EdTPA is such a big part of the student teaching experience. With these next few weeks begin as stressful as they are, I leave everyone with this advice. "God will never give you anything that you cannot handle, so don't stress."