First Week

My first week of student teaching is over.  Was it what I expected?  No, not really.  Am I disappointed or discouraged or second guessing my decision?  Not at all.

These are the experiences that I remember.  I remember that the first day that I was going to be teaching that I was going to be teaching 8th grade math.  These classes are harder to teach because the students are less willing to do anything.  I went in trying to teach something that I hadn't practiced and I got turned around.  The teaching didn't go well and so I learned from that experience that I need to make sure that I have rehearsed what I am going to be teaching.  For things that I am less familiar with I should do a role play.  For other things that I am more familiar with (i.e. what is the slope of a line or what is the y-intercept?).  I don't have to have everything spelled out explicitly.
I was going to teach another class that day.  Before I did though I had some prep time where I was able to do some rehearsing. Then when it came time to teach the 7th graders things went a whole lot better.  I was really excited because earlier I had flopped but then this time I did a lot better.  (So that was how my second day of teaching went)
Lesson learned:  Make sure that you rehearse the things that you are going to teach.  If needed have the answers to the guided notes if it is going to be tricky since it will be one thing or another.  (The scale factor is either 1:14 or 14:1)

The third was a learning experience as every day has been.  I observed my cooperating teacher teach the 7th graders for first period.  Then for second and third the eight graders were in the lab working on the ALEKS program.  Then it was time to teach 5th period again.  This was the class that I felt like I had done so well in the day before.  We were talking about proportions and scales that day.  I think that since I didn't rehearse that I didn't teach very well.  I felt bad after the bell rang and I think that the students left confused.  But they left with the assignment that they were supposed to finish.  Fast forward to the day after.  I talked to those students and I learned something.  They weren't as confused as I thought and they (1/2 to 3/4) were still able to work through the worksheet that was given to them.  To build upon that they seemed to come in to class that next day ready to go again.  The starter touched on what we had covered the day before and they were able to do the starter.
Lesson learned:  even if you think that you failed and just confused the students then that is possible.  But it is also possible to work hard that night to make sure that you get your stuff together and then catch up the next day.  Also trust that the students will try and work out the worksheet given to them.  At least that worked with these honors students.

Bragging time:  I feel like I have done pretty good with learning the kids names.  I would say that there are 4 maybe 5 students in each class that I don't know.  That means that I have learned 25-30 names for 5 classes.  Plus some of the names for my cooperating teacher's class that I am not taking over for.  That is a lot of names!
I wrote last time about how I got a shout out while walking through the halls.  Today, I got my first drawing.  It looks so cute!  The student that drew it said, "Mr. Elmer, I drew this for you."

Thank you to that student whose name I won't say.

First Day

So I know that many of you are curious as to how my first day of student teaching went, so here is my report.  First a little back story:
We were told back in December that we were told that it would be a good idea to make contact with our cooperating teachers.  So the Monday after finals week I went over to the junior high that I would eventually student teach at and talked with the teacher.  We both weren't really sure what to talk about since I haven't ever done student teaching and this is her first time having a student teacher.  But we covered our bases and we agreed that I would just come back and start observing in January.
Fast forward a couple weeks to last week.  We had the student teacher orientation at the university and so I saw all my math ed buddies.  That was really fun.  The university representatives really crammed a whole lot of stuff into the orientation that was Thursday and Friday.  I was feeling fine before then.  I had already made contact with my cooperating teacher and the class seemed like it was going to be an okay class.  But then orientation came and we were told "make sure you do this" "don't forget to do that."  There were a ton of things that I hadn't thought of (which is fine because some of it didn't really affect me) and then there were some other things that before I wasn't worried about but after the orientation I was really nervous about.  Many people at the orientation tried to comfort me but I was still pretty uneasy about the whole student teaching idea.  Though, I am pretty sure that I will feel better after my first day of student teaching.

With all that back story I am ready to talk about how it went today.  I got to school with plenty of time so that I wasn't rushed or anything.  I was really glad about that.  Then I met up with my cooperating teacher and we discussed how today was going to go.  I was going to observe during the day.  We were going to meet up with the university supervisor during 4th period and I was going to help teaching.  My plan before going was to learn as many kids' name as I could because I feel like it is important.  I would say that I was successful in doing that.
1st, 5th and 7th period are 7th grade honors classes.  The students were pretty excited to meet me.  5th period were disappointed that I was going to be taking over because they really like my cooperating teacher.
2nd, 3rd and 6th period are 8th grade classes.  The student are less excited about school in general and in different in having me take over their classes.
I think that it was during 3rd period my cooperating teacher came up to me and asked if I wanted to work through the next example and I said sure.  It went over real well and I was picking out students' names and I was excited.  Later on in the day I had a harder time with the names because I had tried to learn so many names and also because I was just straight up tired.

It was somewhat weird to go to lunch in the faculty room.  The teachers are such good friends and love to talk.  I think the fact that I went to this junior high as a student added to the weirdness factor.  Though it was only there that I really felt weird.
On the way back from the faulty room to the classroom some students gave a shout out to my cooperating teacher and then I got a shout out.  I was pretty excited about that.  It made me feel good.
According to my fitness tracker I took 2,134 steps today.  I thought that I would have taken more steps but oh well.  I might attribute it to the fact that part of the day I was just sitting trying to match names and faces from the seating chart.

Overall, I am really excited for student teaching.  It should be a really good experience.  I enjoyed today and I think I will enjoy tomorrow.  Today should have been easy since I didn't have to prepare the lesson or the material.  My cooperating teacher had already done that.  Then it was just up to both of us to teach the material.

It makes me think of a quote by Ray Bradbury, "Love what you do and do what you love."