First full week

What a fantastic start to my student teaching assignment! My teacher, Mrs. F, is wonderful. Her teaching style is a lot like mine (use the book as an outline, but supplement the heck out of the information, especially with interesting/funny details). She's totally at ease in front of the class...her delivery reminds me strongly of a stand-up comic. Her students are totally engaged, waiting, I'm sure, to find out what she'll say next. It's all relevant to the topic at hand--she provides humorous examples as illustrations. Classroom management is hardly an issue for her. Perhaps it relates to the grade level, but more likely it's because she is such an effective, efficient teacher who keeps the class running smoothly. There's not very much book work, with the exception of the bell ringers at the beginning of the period. She often has the students answer questions or define vocab words from the section(s) that she'll be doing that day. It's a good idea...that way the students are much more likely to be able to answer her when she asks the class what a word means.

I love Mrs. F's use of flipbooks as a means of essay organization. She gives the students the exam essays in advance, written on a whiteboard, with the main themes underlined. They have two essays, but only have to write on one of them on the exam. The students create three-section flip books. Each section deals with one of the three underlined themes, and students can write as much as they want in each of those sections. She told the class that they're not for her, they're for them. They can write as much or as little as they want. Here's the catch: SOMETIMES she'll let the students use their organizers for exams (the whole exam, not just the essay). They can write anything they want, but they must be handwritten. Even if they can't use the organizers that time, the fact that they created them will help them. I'm going to use that idea when I teach later this semester, as well as in my own class.


I've been staying VERY busy. I'm making myself as useful as possible, asking if there's anything I can do for Mrs. F. There's really a lot to do, too. I'm glad I can help with grading, STI, copying, and organizing student work and information...in all, it probably takes me the equivalent of well over a class period. I used to be frustrated by my kids' teachers' failure to keep up with grades, assignment listings, and so on in STI, but I get it now. It's a LOT of work, and it's definitely time-consuming. I have the luxury of doing this during her classes, but if you're teaching three classes a day and have nearly 90 students' papers to go through (as well as future classes to plan for), that's an enormous chunk of time. She has access to STI from home, but most teachers don't (it takes special training). I guess that leaves you with three choices...come in early, stay late, and/or devote your evenings at home to keeping up with work. Or, I suppose, a combination of the three. It's easier when you've taught for a while, but a first-time teacher must be swamped!

I went home exhausted the first day...there was just so much to take in. I had a headache starting third block, but I think it related to having last lunch. We don't get to eat until 1:43 PM! On Wednesday, Mrs. F and I started eating a snack during planning period to stave off the hunger. She's used to having fourth block as her planning period, so this is an adjustment for her. At least with planning as the last block you can go back and take care of all of the administrative tasks and be done for the night.

I'm looking forward to teaching my first lesson this coming Tuesday. I just finished putting together the PowerPoint--it's a challenge finding just the right pictures to illustrate each slide effectively. I'm following Mrs. F's formula...the textbook provides the outline and the key points to cover, then my job is to elaborate and clarify. I'm familiar with the topic, since I took HY 437 last summer (Rise of Modern America). I think my main concern is with the pacing. I'm also going to read a picture book to the class following the PowerPoint, "Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type." It'll be fun to see the students' reaction when they realize that what they formerly thought of as just a silly little baby book is really about union negotiations, strikes, lockouts, and arbitration! Thanks, Dr. Pritchard. You opened up a whole new world to me last semester. Leah's a big picture book fan too...she has a nice collection in her room. That reminds me, I need to go back to the library this afternoon!