Self-Reflection
As
we approach the midway point of the semester, please identify one area in which
you feel you have improved since the start of student teaching. Reflect
on how your improvement in planning/preparation, classroom environment,
instruction, or professional responsibilities occurred.
One area of improvement that I have noticed within myself is my ability use higher level questions within my lessons. Instead of using questions that just require recall and an answer, I am challenging my students to connect with the material and make inferences. This is something that my supervisor brought up to me to try to improve upon, and I have been challenging myself to require this thinking of my students. I understand now that it makes my third graders think more than those questions where the answer is found in plain sight. I am still striving to utilize more high thinking strategies in the future. My improvement has been mainly occurring within domain 3, instruction. I previously wrote very detailed lesson plans as I was told to do so in previous years, however, now I must adapt myself to not putting every single little detail into my lesson. It can be very difficult,having been structured this way, but in the long run I understand that it makes less work and stress on me. My lessons have been very successful and through my assessments I am learning that the students are gaining as much as I had hoped from my lesson as well.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to hear you also say that you have so much detail in your lesson plans. I was instructed by my supervisor to have extremely detailed lesson plans in the beginning, and that the details wouldn't be as needed as the semester went on and I became more experienced. When teaching began, I felt that in order to have myself organized, I need to know each step I am going to take during the lesson. Now I also have adapted my lesson plans a lot with being shorter and clearer in what I write, as opposed to writing down every little move I plan to make. I also attribute some of that to being more familiar with my cooperating teacher, the students, the subjects, and the expectations. It all goes hand in hand, but I'm glad I'm not the only one!
DeleteMr. Goodman has also encouraged me to use higher-order questioning with my students. While I used to have one or two higher-order questions in my lessons, I'm now incorporating them so much more, without even thinking about it sometimes. One of my strategies is for every two recall questions I ask, I make sure I include a higher-order question for my students.Glad to hear it's helping you too!
DeleteWhen student teaching first began, I was given a box of government materials. With those materials I was to come up with a 5 week unit plan and lessons for government for each day. I was overwhelmed since it was right at the beginning of the year and I did not feel like I had a good grip on the students or climate of the classroom yet. My co-op told me that she didn't like the old concept map so she didn't want me to use it and I was also told that there wasn't much criteria for Social Studies since the students aren't tested on it from the state, so it was open season for me in creating this unit. In some ways, having no restrictions seemed to be even more challenging because I was not quite sure of where to start.
ReplyDeleteNow I am much better at coming up with ideas and creating my own lessons. Starting off with the most difficult of tasks is helping the rest of my work seem much easier in comparison. Having guidelines, more standards, concept maps, and common assessments to use as guides, lessons to plan after this government unit are becoming easier to make each time. I was stressed at first, but I now know that I am better for it. It was helpful and the unit was designed, planned, and implemented. The students enjoyed it and tests results were very pleasing.
With one of the domains being planning and preparation, I feel that this is one area in which I have greatly improved in a short time. I was forced to become more than competent in this area in a short amount of time. I am thankful now for the way that it turned out, and I hope that I can apply these skills I have learned to other areas that I am also teaching now.
I agree with you in the aspect that we are kind of forced to become more competent in a short period of time. So much is expected of us in a little time, but I feel like I have made so much progress in this time!!
DeleteI totally agree! One of the most challenging things when I first started on social studies was just coming up with ideas and finding resources, it is just so open ended! I feel more competent too, it's that sink or swim effect.
DeleteOne area of improvement that I have noticed within myself during this student teaching experience is the originality of my lesson plans. During my methods block, and even the beginning of my student teaching I just did as my co-op told me and followed the lessons from the books. Now I find myself coming up with original ideas for lessons. This falls under planning and preparation. I feel that during student teaching this is something that you need to step up right away. During methods block you are practicing writing lesson plans and having professors look over them. During student teaching you are just expected to have detailed lesson plans. I also feel that for myself in order to be organized I must make them detailed so I know what is going on step by step and what I want the students to be doing. I would like to continue to work on creating higher level thinking questions in my lesson plans to require this from my students.
ReplyDeleteI think that with the placement that you are in you almost need originality when teaching your students. New and exciting ideas will entice them in your lesson plan and keep them excited to learn. My co-op also encourages me to come up with lesson plan ideas on my own and not following the books and guides. It will help us in our own classrooms so soon!
DeleteOne area I've improved in during my student teaching is my time management! My first couple lessons were rough,I would go over time by several minutes. This definitely falls under planning and prep, classroom management, and instruction. As I worked with the students more and more, I got a better idea of the way the work, how to shape my lessons around the time constraints, started timing myself, and so on. My co-op and my supervisor have both noticed and complimented my turn around! I've noticed, too, and it has done so much for my confidence while teaching.
ReplyDeleteI feel that way too! I think I put so much effort into thinking that every single thing in my lesson plan needed to be discussed that day and didn't like the idea of simply pushing things back a day. I felt like if that needed to happen then I did something wrong. But after tons of time spent observing my teacher I realized that something things just take longer to teach, or sometimes kids take the lesson a whole different way and spin off to a new direction. I am now more aware of what things I can shorten when teaching, and when to not be really bothered by the fact that the lesson was extended.
DeleteI feel that my time management has improved greatly as well. At the beginning I was always afraid that I would finish a lesson too quickly and have tons of time left over so I would add a lot of extra things in case I finished early. Now I have a good grasp on the length of lessons and what is appropriate for the grade level
DeleteDuring my student teaching, I have improved my use of accomodations and differentiation. This was an area that my supervisor and cooperating teacher suggested would be helpful to improve, as the topic will likely come up in future interviews. I am finding that differentiation comes easily in reading when I can break students into groups to work on different areas of comprehension based on a story we read together. I am still working on making accommodations in math. One group of students is pulled out, so I know they are taken care of for that particular part of class. For my remaining students, I am working on providing enrichment activities to a select group while I work with other students on the main focus of the lesson. My biggest obstacle is allowing some students to miss my lesson, even though I know that they know the material. However, I have been working closely with my coop the past few weeks to create appropriate activities for all students!
ReplyDeleteI think that something I have improved on since student teaching has begun is just being able to adapt quickly on your feet when something goes differently than planned. I think it's hard for any of us when we put so much time and effort into planning a lesson and we are super prepared and confident and then something goes terribly wrong and you just freeze. I had a couple instances like that at the beginning of the semester where students behave would change drastically and they would just make me feel like I had no clue what to do. Now I think I am so much for flexible and I also have better ways to deal with issues like that. I know what activities makes certain kids tick, and I also know ways that help calm them down. I guess you could put this under planning and prep (because now I make sure to plan my lessons "in case of emergency") or classroom environment. I hope that this flexibility and confidence in myself continues to grow throughout the rest of the semester as well!
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I feel I have improved upon in my experience this far is my classroom management and lesson creating. I feel that now that I have improved my classroom management skills, I can incorporate more fun and exciting things into my lesson because I am confident I can control the classroom. I am better able to discipline my students as well as monitor and work with small groups. I think that this has had a major improvement in my overall lessons. I also think that writing lesson plans has become much easier for me. At first it took my forever to come up with lessons and activities but now that I have a feel of the classroom, know my resources, and know my students, i am able to create lesson plans much faster.
ReplyDelete