The second week of my second placement went well. Unlike the first week, this week was relatively "normal" in that there were no holidays. Monday I left halfway through to submit my edTPA (!!) and Friday my CT had a personal day, but a pretty normal week. I have quickly learned the name sof the students (even though I occasionally confuse the names) and am now pretty used to the routine that is in place. I started to be more involved in lessons this week, and am going to be focusing on mostly lead teaching language arts and mathematics starting this upcoming week. I am trying very hard not to compare my two placements, but I feel like I have adapted to the students and the schedule of this placement more quickly than the last, although this could be because I now have some experience and know what to expect more than I did when I first got to know the students from my last placement.
On Friday when my CT had a personal day, I had the "command" of the classroom. Overall I thought that it went well, although it was a learning experience as well. Some of the students were much rowdier than usual (no doubt thanks to having a sub) and some of the students chose to act out more because of this. The sub didn't interact with the students very much, other than to aid me in going around the room to check that students were on task when they were supposed to be working independently and/or with their groups. She told me at the end of the day that based on her experience and seeing how I worked with the students that were rowdy she thought I would "make for an excellent teacher, even though [I] already am one, it would seem. Just need that piece of paper!" That was very refreshing to hear after a bit of a stressful day!
So for this week, I am going to make it my goal that I work with my CT to learn how to be the most effective when disciplining students (I still worry I will make them cry!) and to work on using higher questioning and be efficient when teaching lessons with the students. I think I am still trying how to best teach this age level, and I am bouncing back and forth between the fifth/sixth and preschool ages that I am most familiar with.
It sounds like things are falling into place and your are moving right along. One of the things that might be helping is that your teacher already had a lot of the procedural expectations in place and the curriculum activities were already established - none of the last minute schedule changes and decisions as to what unit will be taught when. She may have experiences all of that before you arrived. But may not have if their academic team had plenty of time to plan and get things set up before the start of the school year.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you received positive praise from the sub. I'm sure that was a confidence booster for you! Have you thought about what you can do if you have a similar situation and the students are 'rowdy'? One idea - make sure they know all your behavior expectations, practice them, stop and remind when necessary, praise when successful.
to help on using higher level questioning, when preparing your plans also prepare some questions using Bloom's Taxonomy question starters. I think I sent you a handout with questioning ideas that can help. If I didn't send you one, let me know and I'll send it off to you.