Hello folks, and welcome back! So this week was my last day at Mokena Elementary School with Mrs. Arduino and her 1st-grade classroom! I genuinely enjoyed the time there, getting to know the students, and being part of the class! I was able to learn a lot from my MT and take with me her tips and methods for teaching into student teaching! For my last day in the classroom, I had the opportunity to teach all the subjects again to help build that experience for when I student teach. I ensured I had a fun activity for the students before leaving. For Science, I brought in white flowers for each student, along with color dyes. So my activity piggybacked from last week’s lesson about plants. I thought this was a great activity because I had a student ask me if the stem of a plant can change color from the dirt, so I thought, why not have a science experiment and how them plan an investigation. So I gave the students the choice of color they would like, and I asked them to make a hypothesis and predict if they thought the flower would change color. The students were very involved; some said it wouldn’t happen, and some were excited to see if it did work.
After an hour, some of the student’s flowers began to change color. The excitement I saw on their faces was the best feeling because the students got to see an experiment go successfully! The students were thrilled to take it home and see the progress of their flowers.
It was a great last day; the students were very engaged throughout every lesson that I taught. At the end, my MT and the students surprised me with gifts from all of them! I was surprised and sad to leave them because the students got attached to me, and they would get so excited to see me every Thursday! The students hugged me, told me they would miss me, and hoped I could return to visit them! I will miss them because I became friends with them, and I saw progress in each student, especially the ones that I kept guiding during the subjects they were struggling with.
Hopefully, this isn’t goodbye since I might student-teach there in the fall!
Two areas I have improved throughout my time in field would be my classroom management skills and the ability to redirect the students. I struggled in this area initially, and in the first two lessons I taught. I did not have any classroom management skills, and I struggled with redirecting the students, transitioning to different areas of the lesson, and even restating the instructions. After experiencing that, I was able to create a plan with my MT where I could take over a couple more subjects, so I could practice those skills. I am proud to say that I truly saw progress in myself in this area, and even my MT mentioned that she is proud and thrilled that I excelled in this area. Another area I have improved in was slowing down and reteaching the content when the students were confused. After meeting with my professor after my first teaching lesson, she mentioned that I need to slow down and that the goal is to ensure that the students truly understand the content and can comprehend the lesson. After hearing that advice, I applied that to everything I taught in the classroom, and I saw a huge difference in the student’s understanding of the content. I never thought slowing down and going back would make the lesson more successful.
Two areas that I still need to work on are multitasking. I tried to enhance this skill in the classroom when a bunch of students needed my assistance with things. I tried to help each student as much as I could, but I could never get all the students. I feel that it is going to still be a challenge to help every student, but I will keep trying until I feel that I have aided all of the students. I know that I struggled with this area when the students were confused due to me not restating the directions and getting the student’s full attention. I would say that because I got the students give me their full attention and consistently restate the directions, this problem became less. Another area that I still need to work on is writing lesson plans. I feel that I haven’t mastered that area. My goal is to go through step by step when creating a lesson plan and see where I am going wrong. Lesson plans aren’t easy, but I would like to be able to write one and not feel that it is successful.
I would say that every time I would go in on Thursday, I would have a fun time because I get to hear what the students have to tell me. They would always have stories to tell me, and I enjoyed listening to them! If I had to choose one day out of the 14 weeks I was there, I would say the last day because the students got to do a fun science experiment, and witnessing their excitement when their flowers started to change color was an amazing feeling; they were having a great time. They got to see a flower change its color!
For the most challenging experience, I would say it was the first day being there because they didn’t know me, and I didn’t know anything about the classroom or the students. I remember me walking into the classroom and them looking at me like who is this random person. I didn’t know where to begin for the students to know me, and I know them, until I did my interest inventory question on the second week, that is how I got the students to open up to me and let me know what their interests are.
The best lesson I taught was my second Literacy lesson because the students were involved. I didn’t have to stop and redirect student’s attention to the lesson. They were truly engaged in the lesson. How I taught it and transitioned to each part of my lesson helped me maximize the learning time and had the students understand the content. I enjoyed hearing the responses the students wrote down to reduce waste in the environment and how they will recycle. Lastly, I enjoyed teaching the students about compost. They had never heard of that before, and after teaching them about it, they looked at me as if I had given them an idea. That was the last lesson I taught, so I put my all into it so it would be successful, and it really was!
The worst lesson I taught would be the first lesson which was Science. I wanted to be successful, but the students were confused and getting too loud. I didn’t have any classroom management skills, and I kept hearing ” I don’t understand” from almost all the students, and I knew I had done something wrong. I planned it better in my head, but it went wrong in the classroom. My experiment in guided practice wouldn’t work, so I had to ruin the independent practice experiment by showing them, even though I wanted them to look for it. Overall, that lesson made me feel overwhelmed and anxious because of how horrible it went, but after speaking with both my professor and MT, I was able to prevent those mistakes, so that would occur again.
Three things that I learned from my MT were to make accommodations for every lesson you make because not every student can perform like the other students in the classroom. I took that into consideration, so now I know to always accommodate students. The second one was it is okay to stop, reteach and repeat. I was able to apply the method she told me to the rest of my lessons, and I saw a huge difference in my teaching. Lastly, her third tip is to always know when to regroup the students and grab their attention. She noticed that I was really bad at getting students to stop talking, so she helped me and gave me a few signals so that I could get the student’s attention back to me and the lesson. She told me to always tell the students the expectations you are expecting from them because if you don’t explain why you want them to act that way, they won’t understand.
I have learned three things about myself: I never knew I could teach and bond with the students. I felt that because I’ve never been around students in a school setting, I wouldn’t be able to do it correctly, but I surprised myself when I started doing it, and it came out naturally. I was shocked because I enjoyed being around students, and my thought process was that every Thursday, these students would learn new things from me, which was exciting for me. The second thing I learned about myself is that I get enthusiastic and excited when I teach something to the students. I never paid attention to it until I heard myself during the middle of my teaching, how my voice changes, and how I get the students interested in what I am showing and teaching them. Because of that, the students are more involved during my lesson, which is great. Lastly, I learned to have backup plans. I experienced this during my lessons; where something goes wrong, I would be able to come up with a backup plan quickly so that I could continue with the lesson. I think that is a great strategy I have developed because this means I am quick on my feet.
I have learned three things about the students in the classroom: they are always curious to learn new things. I love that about them because it makes the lesson I teach come to life. Another that I learned about them is that they are good students. They just like it when someone listens to them, and I was a great listener. Listening to what they had to say made the students feel that I cared about them and acknowledged them. This group of students was really great, and they were very intelligent as well. The third thing I learned about them is that they can make connections and tie real-life experiences into the lesson being taught to them. I was impressed because not many students could connect about certain topics, but this group wasn’t any ordinary kids.
Three things that I have learned about the education field are that you need to have patience when teaching students, you need to also create a safe and positive classroom environment for the students, and lastly, you need to give students the opportunity to have autonomy in some of the things they do. When I would teach something in the class, if I was to give the students the opportunity them writing what they would like to write about, then I would give it to them because that is where their creativity comes into play.
Something that I wish I had done differently would be even more engaged with the students and do more fun activities during that time. Even though I had done some fun activities in the classroom, I could’ve incorporated more into the lessons.
What I am excited about in terms of student teaching is seeing how the teacher facilitates classroom management and expectation for the new students. I think it’s exciting to start fresh with new kids, so everything is going to be new for both me and the group of students, as well as the CT. I’m excited to see the students’ differences and growth from the beginning of the school year until winter.
What I am anxious about in terms of student teaching is not understanding the new students. I was able to click with the students in the field, but what if the new group of students isn’t as engaging and interactive as my 1st-grade class is. I am going to look at it as they are still new, and they are probably shy at the beginning, and hopefully, after the first few weeks, they can start to be themselves.
