Later Mrs. B and I organized the classroom and prepared for the start of the new semester tomorrow! Tomorrow is also the first day I start student teaching!
Tuesday - Today I observed the two 8th grade classes and Mrs. B start them off. One student introduced themselves to me before class started which I really appreciated. The student shook my hand with their left hand because the right was full -- but the gesture still meant something especially from an 8th grader. I will also have to make sure my students learn how to shake hands too!
After 8th grade I had a prep period where I got my room all ready to go, objectives and bellwork posted, supplies on the tables, etc. Mrs. B and I greeted the students at the door. I believe that this class went really well for the first day. This class is a unique situation since Mrs. B is teaching ag business to 6 students in the corner and I am teaching 15 students about agriculture leadership in the rest of the room. I went over their bellwork/ticket out and classroom response folder, and how to make name tags that they can use over and over again. I then went over the classroom procedures, expectations, and consequences for the class.
We played a game to get to know each other a little better and so I could learn their names. I wanted to stay away from the traditional "stand up in front of everyone and tell me one interesting fact" so INSTEAD I had all the students get in a circle in the room where they had to toss the ball to each other and who ever had the ball when the music stopped had to answer a question. Some of the students really did not want to play because they don't like attention on them but it was a great time to learn the students names and learn about what they are interested in.
The students then went to lunch and when they came back we went over the syllabus. I had a student hand out the syllabus then we went over it. The second half went good as well. I got to see the students that are chatty and the ones that are on their phones a lot so it was good to take note of that in the beginning. I could have improved my classroom management in the last two minutes. I was talking to them trying to learn more about them and they all got antsy to get out of the door when I wanted them to stay at their seats until the bell rings.
I observed the agricultural mechanics class for the last period and got to see the classroom dynamics. It is mostly a guy class with only a handful of girls. I have to remember that everyone has a story and a background experience that you may not know about that will affect their personality and their behavior in class.
Over all it was a good day. I got to also complete my first bus duty!
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| My students don't look like this yet! I'm keeping them engaged! |
Wednesday - I observed the horticulture class that I will be teaching later during first period. I got to see an excellent rapport between teacher and students. All the students behaved and asked a lot of questions related to horticulture. They also talked about careers and post secondary education related to the topic. The technical education department is also going to take a trip to Penn Techs horticultural program in the spring.
I then had a prep period where I prepared for my third period class where I teach. The first half went well, I have a gaggle of boys that like to talk a lot so that is going to be taken care of tomorrow and they will not be sitting with each other as they distract each other too much. After lunch went okay, the smart boards sound would not connect to my computer and I had to summarize the podcast that I wanted to share with the students. I then had some of the girls that had the class last year recite the creed as an example of a public speaking contest we will be covering later on in the unit. I then improvised and started a public speaking tip of the day. I do not think the students realized that I did not necessarily have the last part planned totally, but it just goes to show that it is important to have ideas and topics to use if technology doesn't work.
** Really good thing:::: My students came in, got their folders, and started on their bellwork without me having to say anything! #forthewin
In the afternoon I observed Ag Mechanics class where we went over safety and talked about welding. I observed more of the class dynamics and students I will have to watch out for and some that if I get them on my side then the rest of the students will follow.
Thursday - While I observed the 8th grade class I learned about different ways to create groups in classes so the students do not constantly work with the same person for every group activity. The students were grouped based upon different things that they enjoy such as color and hobbies, and random things like the amount of siblings they have. The students may also not have the same partner twice which helps with classroom dynamics and making everything fair.
For my leadership class everything went well. The table of freshman boys, I gave them a final warning that if I had to talk to them today about being quiet, they would be totally split up and no longer able to sit together. That worked for most of them... a lot of the boys kept telling the one to be quiet. So I am thinking that they may be able to stay together and just move the one. We talked a lot of about communication styles and how personalities affect how people like to communicate. We also learned about how listening ties into communication and is an important aspect of communication.
For Ag Mechanics we went over the safety rules of the shop and what the different colors mean in a work area. We also got a welder out for the next day to start talking about it and how it works.
Friday - Today...was PACKED! I got here early this morning to check over my emails so I was maybe in my classroom for 10 minutes this morning. The rest of the day I was in the large gym with the "Junior Achievement S.T.E.M Summit". I was a great experience, I got a lot of ideas that I might be able to do in classes. I also got to see some of my students participate in different experiments and activities. My job was time keeper. I had to make sure everyone rotated at the correct time and that we didn't get behind schedule. My only frustration was that none of the stations were tied in with agriculture. The HVAC, electricity, and water quality definitely could have been related to agriculture and students could have learned more about it. I got to get to know some of the other teachers and administrators better so it was a good experience over all. I also got experience writing a sub plan for Mrs. B, where she wrote on it and told me what was good and what can be improved to help make it easier for myself to read and utilize.
This weekend I am going to be working on lesson planning for next week and for when I get my second class started. I am also going to develop a seating plan for my leadership class to make sure that students are ready to learn and are less likely to get distracted.
I am so glad to hear that students are starting to embrace standard operating procedures. It is always a telling sign of what has happened in the past days to see what students do without their teacher telling them when you visit a classroom for the first time!
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