Macro Reflections on Micro Teaching

The week of November 13th, was a new and fun experience for all the members of the PSUAgEd 2018 cohort.  We had the chance to go into a classroom and teach for three consecutive days.  Up to this point all of our experiences teaching was either in a mock classroom made up of our cohort members or in a workshop setting for only 2 hours.  This time we actually were able to teach a class of students for three days in a row.  My experience was at Bellwood-Antis High School with Mr. Webreck's classes.  I was starting the class on their new unit; the dairy industry.  Mr. Webreck told me I could go in any direction I wanted to with this.     
Monday, November 13th 
This was the first day of the process.  Monday was the day that I was able to just go and observe the class that I would be in charge of for the next few days.  The class that I taught was a class of eight sophomores.  They were wrapping up a lessons on how to use a compass this day and I was able to see each student's true personality while they were doing an activity outside.  I knew that weren't going to be too bad but definitely had a few students to keep an eye on for the rest of the week. 
Tuesday, November 14th 
This was it!  This was my first day of teaching this group of students that I knew nothing about.  Were they going to already know everything I was about to teach them?  Were they going act out the entire time or even worse were they going to just sit there like bumps on a log and not participate?  All of these thoughts flew through my head as the clock quickly ticked to 12:30.  Looking back now, I am not sure why these I was thinking these things because the class went really well.  They participated, they seemed engaged and willing to learn.  I did have one student who kept wanting to put his head down but  I feel like I did a good job of individually calling on him to answer a question which made him pick up his head and stay engaged.  One downfall of the day was that I went way too fast.  I flew through the material and the students ended up having 3-4 minutes at the end with nothing to do.  Pacing is always a thing I need to improve upon.
Wednesday, November 15th 
After noticing I had extra time the day before, I changed up my lesson for Wednesday hoping to have more for students to do and to teach bell to bell.  Unfortunately, I planned a little too much and was unable to get through everything; can't find the perfect balance yet.  During this class, though I really like the activities I had students do and put a lot of the responsibility on them.  I gave each student a step of the cheese making process that they had to capture information on through out a video they watched.  I put more of the work on them instead of me just lecturing them on the process.  Students seemed to like this activity.  I definitely was able to teach bell to bell this time but there was so much more that I wanted to cover.
Thursday, November 16th 
My final day of teaching at Bellwood- Antis!  This I think was my best day yet!  I had students think about what goes into marketing products and they each created a new flavor of ice cream.  I was able to get lots of student participation during the short lecture and then I had them up and moving to make their poster of their flavors.  I also rounded out the day with a short quiz on what they had learned in the past two days.  I gave them 10 minutes to complete this quiz and then I them one magical minute to use their notes they had captured earlier in the week. 

The BAHS students' poster of the new Berkey Creamery flavors!  

 

I had an absolute blast during my micro teaching experience at Bellwood-Antis High School.  I was able to learn a lot during this time like how to get my timing and pacing more accurate and how to manage a classroom of high school students.  At the end my experience, I asked students if they would give me some feedback and tell me how I had done.  I am pleased to say that all of the students were very satisfied with my teaching!  I was sad to walk away from the class at the end of three days, I feel like I was just starting to connect with the students and getting to know each of them.  This just makes me extra eager to start my student teaching in the spring!!

Ms. Becker and I leaving our last day of micro teaching!