Week One Student Teaching

Week one of my student teaching experience has started relatively smoothly. My cooperative teacher seems eager to teach me the tools of the trade and has helped me become acclimated with her classroom and the school. Although nervous, I am very eager to take over my first class and start teaching. Over the last few days I have been able to start planning for teaching this class, (third period computer applications) were I plan to have the students fill out a basic questionnaire of their likes, dislikes, and other interesting things I may not know about them. I also plan on having them write their names in on an index card and make the card visible to me over the first week of teaching; I believe this will help me learn each student's name relatively quickly. I have also started planning my second lesson on utilizing an assumptions table in Microsoft Excel. Hope you have all had a great first week! I look forward to reading your blogs and the comments you leave me.


1. What Aspects of the week did I find most valuable?

I found observing this week to be very beneficial in understanding how teachers manage the time they have to finish their work load. Observing this week helped me realize that teachers are very busy during the day planning lessons, grading papers, answering questions, managing their students and keeping their classroom organized. My Cooperative teacher allowed me to grade papers, answer student questions, and get acquainted with her room this week. I found all of these aspects valuable in the learning process and I feel more like a teacher everyday. This week also helped me get acquainted with the two hour delay schedule; Thursday mornings weather allowed for a two hour delay and a late morning call from my cooperative teacher stating that she would be late gave me the opportunity to teach her Accounting I students on the fly. Teaching her Accounting I students without proper planning time helped me realize that teaching can be effective even when you have to think and plan under pressure.


2. If I had the chance to start the week over I would:

This week went very well, although if I were given the chance to start it over I would have tried harder to get to know more of the students names. I find learning names to be very difficult and even though I know it will take me longer to learn the students names I didn't put the time needed into this task. This week went by very quickly and if I had the chance to start over I would have also gave myself more time to work with my cooperative teachers software, including her grade book, computer lock out, and attendance spreadsheet. Although I would have done these few things differently I feel confident in my ability to learn these things relatively quickly at the beginning of next week.