Student Teaching Adventures

It is hard to believe that this crazy semester has finally come to an end. The end of my college career is actually here now. I am in actual disbelief that I survived this bizarre semester, and I actually came out in one piece.

Truthfully, this has been one of the most challenging yet rewarding experiences of my life. I am not going to lie to you and say that it was all smiles and fun. You truly have to work as hard as you possibly can and put everything into this time. However, I can promise you the hard work is worth every single second. I got to try so many things from my Pinterest board, I got to meet so many new people, and I was able to gain experience in new environments.

From start to finish, I was thrown into an odd arrangement with my cooperating teacher as he was not the ideal teacher; however, this allowed me to be a lead teacher for 11 out of the 16 total weeks. I would not trade this experience for the world. Because of my less than ideal cooperating teacher, I pushed myself out of my comfort zone to meet many new teachers and collaborate with them. I was able to make the classroom my own, with my own decorations and procedures. I was able to observe many other teaching styles and collaborate in co-teaching environments. I was able to meet and build relationships with some fantastic students. I was able to get a full-time job.

Yes, I am one of the lucky few who received a job offer (and accepted it) prior to graduation. But I know in my heart that I earned that position. I worked as hard as possible building interactive, differentiated lessons for my students. I got to school early, stayed late, and worked through my lunch period to learn from other teachers and get involved in as many ways as possible.

Student teaching was a period of growth for me. I was put in a unique situation which allowed me to branch out on my own and push myself to learn as much as I could. For anyone, regardless of your placement or cooperating teacher, student teaching is a time to put yourself out there and truly put everything into it to try new things and learn so much. I would not and could not trade this experience for anything and I look forward to assisting future student teachers through their process as it is a challenging, yet very rewarding experience.

I should probably preface this post by saying two things: 1) it is a privilege to even get interviews, 2) I have very bad anxiety.

I have been fortunate enough to be given a first and second interview from the school that I am student teaching at. The school is in my home school district and only about 15 minutes from my home. It sounds like a dream come true and it is honestly that. However, there is no job without the interviews.

Interviews are my biggest fear. When I say biggest fear, I mean nightmares after nightmares of what could go wrong. My anxiety kicks in in hyper drive when I start thinking about interviews. Knowing this, I push myself to prepare as much as humanly possible for them; however, I have to be careful because if I think about it too much, my health is truly at risk.

I am writing this post not an hour after walking out of my second interview. My Fitbit currently says my heart rate is at 121 bpm. If you are not aware of what that means, the average resting heart beat for my age is between 60-80. That means that I am practically double what it should be from the anxiety ensued during my interview.

While I am not the majority when it comes to interviews, I still have some advice for both my future self when this experience comes about again and those who have not yet gotten there:

• SMILE – you will feel like a fool but it truly makes a difference, and it elicits smiles back at you which takes away some nerves
• Answer with as many situations as you possibly can – we all know the cliche answers, they want to see that we know how to apply those answers
• Be honest – it is okay to say that you do not have experience with something but make sure you tell them what you think you would do with those situations.
• Ask for help – reach out to as many resources as you have to practice before your interview, it helps more than you could imagine.

Now its time for me to take my own advice – here’s to hoping there are no more interviews!

We all know that teaching is a profession of reflection, meaning that not everything is going to go perfect at every single moment but with a dedication to reflecting, you are able to make the most of those challenges and improve. While most of us knew this coming into the profession, it often times becomes a lot more difficult to do in the moment.

This semester is made for reflection and I have been sure to do just that. I have pushed myself to think critically of every lesson, every class period, and every unit. This being said, I have learned a lot about myself and my students. I have gained insight into how my students learn best as well as what methods of instruction I am most effective at. However, knowing this, I still wanted to take advantage of my time in student teaching, a risk free environment, to push myself and try new things. With this came a student led lesson that my students were not quite ready for. While in the grand scheme of things, this is no big deal. I taught a lesson that did not go as expected and I was not able to fully engage students. My task is then to reflect and move forward so I know how to better that same lesson as well as take control the following day and truly show my students what I am there to do.

Unfortunately for me, I was not able to think that clearly in the moment. I was disappointed in the failed attempt. I was embarrassed that my supervisor witnessed that chaotic mess. I wanted to hit the rewind button and start that day and lesson over.

Through my post conference with my supervisor; I was an absolute mess, tears flowing from my disappointment and embarrassment. Fortunately for me, I have an absolutely stellar supervisor who patiently sat with me through the tears to try and talked through a plan for the days moving forward. She was able to draw me back and explain to me that it is one lesson and it happens. We talked through how to redo the lesson if I were given the chance as well as how I can improve my lessons moving forward.

Teaching is a process of learning to bounce back after challenges. I was able to think through my lesson and recognize my faults as well as how I can knock the next one out of the park. With this reflection, I was able to push myself to be my best and recognize that mistakes happen. We cannot let ourselves shut down from mistakes, but grow as teachers and students.

The inevitable end to student teaching brings about the job search. Now being in education, we have heard our friends accepting job offers since August so it is a little intimidating having to look so much later than most people we know. However, rest assured, in the education world, you truly cannot begin the search early. Schools have to find out their numbers. People are moving around within buildings, people are moving to other schools in the district, people are retiring, and some people are just not returning.

This being said, my job hunt began around Spring Break. By this I mean, I found the school districts that I wanted to apply to, began filling out applications, and tried to find as many connections as humanly possible. Now it is crazy to think but finding a job in the education world is often reliant on connections. It is great if you are an incredible teacher and you are one of those people that were born ready to be a teacher, but without having some connections, it is very easy to slip through the cracks.

Here are the things that I have learned about the job search process thus far that I had no clue about:

• Connections can bring you from one of 8000 applications to one of thirty being interviewed.
• When you submit your application, it goes to the top of the list. This means that you should repeatedly submit your application to keep it current and at the top of the list to be seen by schools.
• Many schools don’t know their numbers until the end of the school year and some until the end of the summer.
• That means that you may not get a job until August so you should not stress if you do not have a job before graduation (still trying to remind myself of this one).
• Most applications are through a system called “Applitrack”, and your applications connect to each other so you do not have to retype everything in every single time – just use the same login for each school application.

As the edTPA journey was coming to a close, I was eager to just get it done with. Unfortunately, that is the biggest mistake you can make with it. It is a stressful and time consuming task; however, it is so important so the only way to get through it and pass is to power through with your best efforts.

While I like to think I am an organized person, I tend to fall short of that title at times. edTPA was no exception. I planned my lessons early, taught them right away, yet when it came to the work that followed the actual teaching, I began to slack. There are so many steps involved in edTPA that I let my anxiety take over and run the show. This meant that the dead line date that I was aiming for came at me like a train.

I decided not to run and go full speed ahead with the work. This resulted in three ten hour days of nonstop work. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS METHOD. I was tired, overwhelmed, and frankly, really mad at myself. While I was able to get it all done in this time, I just felt overworked and unsatisfied with my efforts.

The waiting game comes next. You are given about three weeks of stress, waiting on your results, rethinking everything you did, and your overall abilities as a teacher. Now a passing grade for me is 35/75. That is less than a 50%. You can essentially fail and still pass. This being said, I let the stress control me following my submission for about a week. Then I decided to think a little more logically. I only had to get 35 points and I would pass. It couldn’t be too difficult to do, right? Right. My fateful three weeks came and went with a passing grade landing in my inbox. The state of Illinois actually decided that I could become a teacher.

With edTPA now under my belt, the countdown to graduation and the feat of actually becoming a licensed teacher was upon me.

Spring break is supposed to be a time of relaxation and productivity. However, my first spring break as a real adult (at least as close as I have ever been to being a real adult in my life) was more stressful than I could have ver imagined. With so much time, I wanted to take full advantage and be as productive as possible. With productivity comes stress for me. I knew I had so much to get done so I did not have time to relax.

My week consisted of finalizing edTPA, lesson planning for the rest of my time in student teaching, material preparation for those lessons, school work for my classes, and job applications. My advice to you is while you should take advantage of this time, do not rely on that time for all of your work. Student teaching is a weird time of class, work, and future preparations. I was thankful for the time to catch up and be productive; however, I convinced myself that I could do it all. This was definitely not the case.

In addition to taking advantage of that time, make sure you give yourself actual time to relax. If you are constantly working and either getting ahead or catching up, you leave yourself overworked and stressed. A break is important and necessary honestly. We are put through so much during student teaching, and while each aspect of it is important, it does cause stress and leave little free time. We have chosen a career that gives us a break and we need to take advantage of that so you are not overworking and stressing.

 

It is a tale as old as time that math is hard and boring, at least in the middle school realm. Of course, as any middle school math teacher would say, it is my job to make it fun and enjoyable so students want to get involved and are not as intimated by it. While I have tried to do so throughout my student teaching, I was particularly excited about the ongoing project that I developed for my students.

The March Madness basketball tournament just began and I wanted to try and incorporate it into our classroom. Middle school  boys are a hard demographic to reach when it comes to enjoying math. Many of them feel as if math is irrelevant to their life (not arguing), so making math both interesting and irrelevant is the key to their participation. We are in the middle of a unit on all things percents, so I thought I would run with that idea to bring March Madness into the classroom.

I had the students find the winning percentage for every single team in the tournament. This involved setting up an algebraic equation with the number of games played and the number of games won during regular season. Once they recorded each team’s winning percentage, they were to fill out a bracket based on those scores – whichever team had a higher winning percentage won. The students then did the same for field goal percentage and free throw percentage. In the end, we were left with three different brackets to vote on.. The students had to vote on which bracket they felt would perform better in the tournament and justify their decision using claim, evidence, and reasoning.

As a class, we have the brackets displayed in the classroom on poster board. They are updated daily with the game results. Additionally, we check the tournament challenge website daily to see the percentage correct thus far in the tournament. At the end of the tournament, the students will be writing another claim, evidence, and reasoning to explain which bracket performed better.

Miss C

A major part of teaching is dealing with behavioral issues. It is a fact of the matter and regardless of grade level, it is apart of the job. For me personally, it is one of the most challenging parts of the job. It is also something that only comes with practice. Each school has a different policy and each teacher has a different style when it comes to handling behavior. Coming into my classroom, I have an older cooperating teacher so the respect is almost automatic between the students and him. This being said, when I began my takeover, the automatic respect is not there, which resulted in more behavior issues.

In middle school, most of my behavior issues are off task students during class because they are too busy socializing or misuse of the chromebook in class. My school district is fortunate enough to provide every student with a chrome book of their own. Because of this, the students are constantly on them either playing games when they should be working or chatting with someone when they should not be. I am working towards gaining the respect of the students so this is minimized; however, it is still a challenge starting from this point.

We have a couple of students who have been trouble kids since the start of the year. They are awesome at math, yet feel the need to disrupt the learning of others. With this in mind, I am jumping into a role of maintaining the current behavior interventions set up by both my cooperating teachers and the other teachers on my team, as well as developing my own style of handling behavior that I see. This has been a challenge for me. I have previous experience in younger grade levels where much more minor steps can be made to make a huge difference in the behavior of that child. In seventh grade, I am having to learn what is a meaningful consequence that not only eliminates the poor behavioral choice but also encourages participation in positive behavioral choices.

Handling behavior is always going to be an area of difficulty for me as I begin but with practice, I will be able to speed through the challenges and handle the behavior quickly and efficiently. As for now, this is something that I will continue practicing and participating in. My recommendation is to get as much practice as humanly possible through every placement so you have a tool box of methods to pull from when working with behaviorally challenged students.

Miss C

There comes a point, about half way through the semester, when it is time to fully become the teacher. This transition should be smooth yet still nerve racking (at least that is what I kept telling myself). I knew that I was ready and that I have practically been taking over thus far so it would not be a large transition. In my middle school placement, I have two different classes to plan for: honors math and general math. With this ‘luxury’, I am saved tremendous amount of time when it comes to the planning aspect of a take over. I only have to plan two different lessons, where I would have to plan out a lot more with elementary. Another ‘luxury’ that I have is my co-taught classes. All four of my general math classes are co-taught between me and either an ESL teacher or SPED teacher. This means that while I fully consider and plan supports for those individual students, I do not have to do it alone. I am able to plan a lesson, collaborate with my two co-teachers, and develop a plan for how to reach those students. I am not bogged down by the thought of having to plan for so many different people that I am still in the process of getting to know but instead of awesome resources for that support so I can be as effective as possible.

Now, although I say I have these luxuries, I have some challenges as well. Middle school is a very weird world in its own education bubble. 12-13 year olds are a different breed of human. I love the added challenge of supporting their emotional and personal growth alongside their academic growth. We all remember how weird middle school can be because it is a time of transition. As a teacher, my role is to be a resource for students during their transition and help eliminate as much stress and confusion as possible when it comes to their time in the classroom.

I pride myself on being a caring and fun teacher (at least I think I’m fun). By knowing how ‘weird’ middle school is, I want my students to enjoy their time with me. I want my students to feel safe and supported in the classroom and that my presence in their life is a positive one. With my full takeover happening, I have to assert myself so students understand my role as both a teacher and supporter. With my cooperating teacher being an almost 60 year old man, our teacher styles are wildly different. Knowing this, my transition has even more added pressure to be smooth and effective for my students.

Thus far, I think my students are beginning to recognize me as the adult in the classroom. I came excited to continue to work through this and see where my takeover takes me. This experience is unlike anything else and I am excited to take full advantage of my new position!

Miss C

Every teacher is aware of the responsibility to communicate with parents as part of his or her job. This responsibility can be expressed in many different forms; such as, weekly newsletters, emails/phone calls home, online class website, and of course, parent-teacher conferences. Many teachers stress over this practice as parents are unpredictable. Going into the experience, you truly have no idea how parents are going to react to their students’ work/grades/behaviors. There are some parents that you have been in recent or even constant communication with so you have an idea of what is going to discussed but in the grand scheme of things, you have to be prepared for anything.

Going into my conferences, I had one parent that my cooperating teacher had been in recent communication with that we felt was going to be a difficult conference. Yet, the conferences are limited to 5 minutes each, that is if you stay on schedule, so while it could be difficult, it would be done and over with before we knew it. I had never experienced parent-teacher conferences prior to my student teaching and had little to no experience with parent communication to back it up. I was pretty nervous, but excited to jumpstart that part of my career and gain experience in that part of the job that I had yet to take part in.

My conferences, again only being 5 minutes each, were relatively painless. There were only a couple difficult conversations that appeared to stem from a lack of understanding of where his or her child was at in our class so when the grade conversation came about, they were in complete shock of his or her child’s poor grade in the class. I think the largest challenge came down to the differences already known to me between my cooperating teacher’s teaching philosophy and mine. I was jumping at the gun to tell the parents how much of an improvement the student had made as of recently; however, my cooperating teacher was quick to change that conversation to all of the work that needs to still be seen from that student.

Overall, I would say parent-teacher conferences were no where near as painful as I had been warned about. I am eager to approach them on my own with my teaching philosophy being the focus of the conversation. I would say that the experience definitely demonstrated the importance of parent communication throughout the school year and not just twice a year for conferences, if possible.

Until next time,

Miss C