Student Teaching: Week 2

And just like that, another week has flown by!  I can't believe I am already at the end of my second week of this experience; time sure does fly when you're having fun!  This week was short for us at Selinsgrove as we had Monday off in reflection of Martin Luther King Day, on Tuesday we had an early dismissal due to weather, and Wednesday we had a snow day.  So we really only had two days of classes this whole week since Tuesday was filled with Keystone Testing before we were left out early, however these were the BEST two days for me! 

I taught for the very first time in these two days.  On Thursday, I taught one class of Ag Foundations and on Friday I taught one class of Building Construction and two classes of Ag Foundations.  This was the most nervous, excited, happy and exhilarated feeling I've ever had and it only makes me want it more!  I wish I could tell you about every second of each of these days but my post would be 10 pages long, so below  I am going to talk about some of the themes I took away from the week and what happened to inspire these themes.

Teachable Moments 
On Thursday, I was going over my classroom procedures, consequences and expectations and I was having the students doing an activity with my expectations poster.  My major expectation of the students is that they always be RESPECTFUL and on my poster each of the letter of respectful stand for another word like responsible, engaged, safe, etc.  I wanted the students to work with their group to use words or pictures to tell me what they think each of those words mean or look like to them. 
Halfway through the activity, one of the students pointed out to me that there was a spelling mistake.  I thought no way, my posters had to be checked off by one of my college professors and I had 3 others of the #PSUAGED18 cohort look at it before I had them printed; no way is there a mistake on them.  Sure enough I look up and instead it says to always be RESECTFUL; there is NO P!

When your students point out your first 

mistake.  

For a second, I felt dumb as a rock in front of these kids but then I just went with it.  I had the students then brainstorm of what they think a good word would be in regards to respect that starts with a P.  They came up with  a lot of good ideas like Patience, Personality, Pace, and Place (there's a time and a place for everything).  Was not at all how I originally intended for that to go but it actually kind of worked really well.  

Adaptability 
No only was this week filled with changing up schedules due to testing and snow, I also had to think on my feet and adapt as I went.  The point that sticks out the most of this however would have been when I had to completely remake 80 terminology cards for the Ag Foundations class.  I did an activity with the one class on Thursday where I had general terms associated with the livestock industry on sticky notes around the room.  I grouped students and assigned them a specific species of livestock that they had to find all the terms they believed went with that animal. 
The activity went great and at the end of class I was talking with a student when another student asked if she could help me clean them all up.  I told "Thanks that would be great" and kept talking with the student who was asking me questions.  Well somewhere in all that she must have asked me if she could throw all of the sticky notes away and not thinking I told her yep that would be fine; completely forgetting that I needed those exact cards to do the same activity twice the next day.  The best part was that I didn't even realize the mistake until I was on my way into school the next morning. 

Trying to redo everything for class

in only 20 minutes!  

I made it to school and had 20 minutes before my first block started to remake all 80 of these sticky notes.  At this point I realized I had 10 sticky notes left at my desk.  So I simply had to make little slips of paper with the terms on and they were laid around the room instead of stuck up with sticky notes.  The students never even knew that they had a slightly different activity but I was surprised that I was able to pull it off in time for class and that it all still ran smoothly.  

Assurance 
I was in the middle of an ice breaker game with my last new group of students for the week on Friday afternoon when one of my students raises his hand.  I acknowledged him and asked what he would like to share.  He looked up at me and said "Miss. Fisher I can tell that you are going to be a really good student teacher.  Other student teachers that we have had in our other classes usually just stand at the back of the room, really awkwardly and can't ever really talk to us.  You aren't afraid to get up in front of us and really talk to us, not above us but really want to know us so I think that you are going to do good and have fun."
This was exactly what I needed to hear at this point in the week because I had just did my first day lesson with four classes, none of which I was able to do the exact same way with, and wasn't sure how the students were taking me so far.  Mrs. Fry and Mr. Swineford were letting me know that I was really doing a good job so far but hearing from one of the students just really made me feel like I was doing a good job and that I am going to be able to do this!

When you get your first teaching compliment from your students 

and you try to keep your composure.  

I hope I can keep up the good work and continue to gain the respect from the students!  I truly think that my first week went really well and think that together, the students and I have a lot of fun and interesting weeks ahead of us!  Tune in next week to hear how lessons on shop safety, dairy cattle and the swine industry go over with the students at Selinsgrove :)