This week we all eagerly started attending school at our cooperating centers fresh off the pre-internship seminar and equipped with our binders of lesson plans. Unfortunately for me, all I did this week was observe classes -- plus we had a snow day on Tuesday and a two-hour delay on Wednesday.
One good thing about the week though was that I got to see what classes I would be teaching. I could not be happier with the group of kids I have been given. They are all well behaved and seem like they are legitimately interested in agriculture. Most of them have backgrounds with animals.
During a few of the classes, Mr. Tindall had the students complete book work. This was my only opportunity to really try and teach them and help them. I just walked around, asked each group how they were doing, and helped where I could. I also provided words of encouragement to the students who felt like "it was stupid".
One thing I noticed was that a lot of the kids lose attention pretty easily. I will make sure my classes address engagement and that I keep the students involved as much as possible. Some of the kids have asked me "when do you start teaching? do you start today?" Hopefully once I do start I can make the class as fun as they hope.
Tyler,
ReplyDeleteThank for you for sharing! As you move forward into future weeks, I am going to encourage you to reflect deeper on what works in actual teacher practice and what did not work (and more important WHY!!)
Keep smiling,
Dr. Foster
Tyler, I am so excited to watch you continue to grow and develop as an educator over the next fifteen weeks. I think observation time is extremely valuable prior to your actual teaching experience, but to agree with Dr. Foster, I encourage you to push yourself to reflect deeper and move beyond what you did and start answering questions like why and how. I'm really proud of you and look forward to my first observation!
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