Teacher Thoughts

I’m now in the second semester at my school placement where I see my students every day. I’ve been fortunate enough to foster the relationships I’ve built. As I’m reflecting back to a few weeks ago before my students left for winter break, I stated goals that I hoped to accomplish this semester and the biggest goal was improving my classroom management skills. One positive skill I have is that I am able to communicate with my students and because of that, I am strengthening my partnership with them. However, one drawback I have noticed is that because it’s not really my classroom, students respond to me differently than they do my mentor teacher. Luckily, I’ve been able to master nonverbal cues with some of my classes by simply walking around the classroom and moving closer to disruptive students so they stop talking. I do believe my classroom management skills will improve more this semester as I’m seeing my students every day and gaining more confid...

Thus far, I’m working with students a lot more one-on-one on the days I’m at my internship. This is the time of year where students start to get sick and miss school. Last week, I was working with a student who missed a couple of days and since I have 4 sections of biology at different end points, I started from the very beginning of the PowerPoint notes the student had. First off, I want to point out that this student has increased their self-advocacy to ask for help when needed so I’m very happy about that! However, this student is one who can get lost in all the details. Right now, we’re on the unit of photosynthesis and there are so many little details students must know. When I started going over things, the student said, “Oh we already learned that, I know it.” So I had asked the student to explain it to me in their own words to teach me and that’s when the student realized that just because they’ve seen it, doesn’t mean they know it yet. That specific experienc...