Student Teaching: Week 3

What I Did This Week


Monday: responded to intro letters, taught the catalyst in both periods, taught full class in IM1 period 3 (I think?), attended two IM1 classes


Tuesday: responded to so many intro letters, planned for edTPA (this day was light because it was the asynchronous day, so it was mostly intro letters


Wednesday: attended two IM1 classes and one IM2 class, taught IM1 6th period,  attended an IM2 planning meeting, planned with the IM2 team, ran IM2 Office Hours, responded to SO many intro letters


Thursday: attended two IM1 classes for testing, responded to SO many intro letters, planned for IM2 with Remi and Sydney and alone, created a rough sketch of the IM2 unit and of my lesson, created a rough sketch of the test, gave each other planning feedback


Friday: attended two IM1 classes and one IM2 class for testing, graded IM2 tests, finished responding to intro letters!!!, planned for IM2 (first lesson and my lesson), wrote this blog!, graded all of the homework (5 and 6) as well as trainer modes for all IM1 periods


This looks like a lot less than previous weeks, but it was a lot of work on the same things instead of a tiny amount of work on a lot of things. I definitely feel busy!



What I Will Do Next Week: A Reflection


Read and respond to student intro letters - almost finished with these, have done a ton of them this week

Distribute student and parent permission forms for videography - sent in my spreadsheet, now to wait for responses

Plan the next unit for IM2 alongside my fellow TCs - we've done lots of planning, it just isn't completely finished yet

Teach part or all of IM2 - I didn't do this, and I was actually quite disappointed, but forgot to ask before class started

Continue to mirror instruction in afternoon IM1 periods, expand to two! - felt pretty fine doing this

Continue to learn about Schoology - there are still plenty of weird things that I don't know about, but I figure them all out. This feels fine

Continue to attend and contribute to planning meetings - these also feel fine, nothing spectacular to report

Grade papers? - love this task, as expected



What I Will Do Next Week


Teach IM2

Teach IM1

Plan for IM2 (mostly done)

Finish intro letter responses (hopefully this weekend)

Grade papers


How I’m Feeling & What’s On My Mind


Literally the only thing on my mind right now is the fact that we might be going back very very soon without being vaccinated. I don't want to. And I am very unhappy about it.


What I’m Learning About Teaching and Learning


Schools make decisions and you have to follow them and it stinks. Already knew this, but it still is a terrible feeling every time it happens.


I'll add more to this when I can.


I've been thinking a lot about how much of teaching (or really grading) is just making judgement calls. It's a bit weird as a student teacher because I feel like I have to run most of them past Mr. C since he gets final say, but it's nice to have the power to give students the benefit of the doubt and offer credit for the knowledge they do have rather than punish them for not being all the way "there" yet. However, it was also a great reminder that I can't let myself lose sleep over students not turning in work or not doing well on an assignment every single time. Yes I should watch out for patterns or sudden drops and try to reach out, but I cannot track down each assignment when it doesn't arrive in my inbox, no matter how much I care about the students.

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