Student Teaching Weekly Log

Week 2

1. How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have? This week I did a lot of observation of my mentors relationships with her students. This environment requires a different kind of relation between the teacher and students than I am familiar with. I am trying to find the right kind of mix of my classroom management skills and relationships with my students. I also did some teaching of different class periods. I became more familiar with the procedures and routines of the classroom. I tried to grade some quizzes but because of the proficiency levels, my mentor thinks that the grading is more subjective and preferred to grade them herself. I have been trying to get her to print me seating charts but she doesnt even have them done for her classes, so I have been trying to memorize them on my own. I feel that I have a pretty good grasp of the names, just a few Im still working on. I really didnt have any responsibilities, other than helping answer questions and work with individuals and small groups.

2. What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging experiences? I think my most satisfying experience was when I found out my mentor is getting one of the coaching positions for next year and I was asked about employment at Callanan. My mentor and her co-workers are interested in me taking her position. I have already applied and done some interviewing through Des Moines, but she was going to discuss it with Principal Stahly. I will have endorsements in math and science and I really wanted to have a position using both content areas. Next year they are going to have to rearrange schedules and may need a few teachers who have more than just one endorsement area to do some split days in different content areas. This was so excited to be asked already!!! Since the first week was so disjointed and kind of rocky with the students, I did not properly introduce myself and things about me. I kind of thought that I had given them the basic information that would pertain to them. During the first week and into the beginning of this week, students were asking my mentor a lot of personal questions about me, such as my family life, etc. She and I discussed this and I realized that students really want to know about my personal life. So I did another introduction of myself, including my age and family. Come to find out, the students thought that I was 29 and just getting out of college. They did not realize that I am a mother of 3 children, married for 15 years, and am going back to school as a non-traditional student. I feel that I have been given a lot more respect from my students now that they know more about me. I feel that they connect more with me, personally. To me, this is satisfying because I feel like this might have torn down a wall between myself and my students that I didnt even realize was there. I also realize that my students want to see that I am a person, not just a teacher. I have realized how important it is for my students to be able to connect with me. The most challenging experience was trying to plan the random sampling unit with the next door student teacher. He does not understand how much we need to break down statistical information in a form that our students understand it. Our mentor teachers wanted us to plan together so that we can get the experience of planning with someone else. He was a statistician type person in his former life and he wasnt understanding where I was coming from in our lesson discussion. I was feeling like I wasnt explaining myself well and got frustrated because we could not come to an understanding. Our mentor teachers were both present, though, and they both agreed with me that this student teacher is thinking way too far over the students abilities and was not trying to work well with me. They reassured me that my planning is going well and told me to plan what I wanted, regardless of what the other student teacher was planning. I just felt the frustration of feeling like my communication was inadequate and questioning my ability to know what the students need.

3. What are the plans for the upcoming week? Monday and Tuesday we are wrapping up box and whisker plots and having the students do a project about graphing and frequency charts. Wednesday, students are taking a district benchmark Thursday I start bell-to-bell. I am starting the unit on random sampling. Thursday (my supervisor will be doing my first observation) we will go over an introductory activity of the students getting a hands on experience of counting out samples. Friday we will do a graphic organizer of the types of samples, with examples.

This week has gone much better!

Weekly Log #5

1. How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?This week was more about teaching random sampling. It involved a lot more informally assessing my students to see what they were understanding and how they were making connections with the material. I was trying to find the gaps and create ways to bring it together for a unit review. We had a benchmark test on Friday.

2. What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging experiences?This week was a little more stressful and difficult. Unfortunately, I cant bring any satisfying experiences to mind. I think the biggest challenge was trying to find a way to fill in the gaps that students had not picked up and creating a productive review experience to help students.

3. What are the plans for the upcoming week?Next week, I will not be teaching bell to bell, my mentor will be teaching, again. We will be starting the geometry unit and are starting with angles.

Week 6

1. How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?This week I did a lot of observations of my mentor. She took back most of the teaching responsibilities and I helped with individuals and classroom management. It is very helpful for me to watch my mentor teach because after my bell to bell teaching, I realize how hard it is to form the amount of information that you need to teach into small portions.

2. What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging experiences?I think that the most satisfying experience this week was my final review for my math rotation. I received 7/10 exemplary ratings on my review. Both my mentor and supervisor are impressed with my work ethic and think that I will be a great teacher. This is very helpful to me in knowing that my actions are exemplary of how a teacher should be teaching. Im excited to be on the right path. I just really feel like my career that suits me is finally right in front of me.

3. What are the plans for the upcoming week?This week is my last week at my math rotation. I am going to continue to help individuals and work in the background while observing my teachers mannerisms. I will also go to another school to do an external observation. We will be continuing on with area of quadrilaterals and circles this week, with a formative assessment on Thursday.

Week 8

1. How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?This was the first week of my second placement. I am currently at Stilwell Jr. High in West Des Moines 7th grade science class of Chris Novak. I spent a lot of my time getting to know the procedures in his class and trying to get to know the students. I observed his teaching and tried to jump in class periods when I felt like I understood what was going on. My main responsibilities were just getting an understanding of what he does as a teacher, not just the teaching, but behind the scenes.

2. What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging experiences?I really didnt have any extreme ups or downs this week. I guess that the most satisfying experiences were when the students would come to me with questions and my mentor, Mr.Novak, announced to the class that they can still ask him questions, as well. The students were comfortable asking me questions and I think he wanted them to remember that he is still available.

The most challenging experience occurred over the week. I try to observe teachers and predict what they are going to do next, but I couldnt seem to do that with Mr.Novak. After being confused for a few days, I finally just started asking him a lot of questions and he realized that he was not verbalizing many things to me. He is trying to explain things more deeply to me and told me to ask when I was not following. This was a difficulty turned into a communication triumph.

What are the plans for the upcoming week?This next week, we will be starting with a worm dissection and the students will be continuing on their projects about invertebrates. I am going to try to get into leading the classes by myself more.