Student Teaching: Week 4

What I Did This Week


Monday: attended two IM1 classes, attended and helped in office hours, had a University Mentor debrief meeting, attended the district-wide faculty meeting, met with co-planners

Tuesday: attended 2 IM1 classes and 1 IM2 class and advisory, taught IM2 and IM1 once, attended an IM2 planning meeting, attended NCTM sessions, graded and gave feedback on exit tickets

Wednesday: attended two IM1 classes, attended and helped in office hours, graded and gave feedback

Thursday: attended two IM1 classes and one IM2 class, taught IM2 and one IM1 class, graded and gave feedback

Friday: wrote this blog, attended office hours, had a University Mentor meeting about edTPA, graded and gave feedback on homework and asynchronous work, reflected on lesson plans for the coming week


What I Will Do Next Week: A Reflection


Teach IM2 - I successfully did this twice!

Teach IM1 - this didn't go exactly according to plan this week because Mr. C chose to make a big instructional shift after the first class showed what we needed to get out of instruction. After a completely new lesson was introduced, I taught period 6!

Plan for IM2 (mostly done) - planning is still mostly done, but it's more mostly done than last week and has gone at a respectable pace. I feel good here

Finish intro letter responses (hopefully this weekend) - totally finished these and have continued to respond as some later letters gradually trickle in

Grade papers - grading was my strong suit this week and I got a lot of it done. I've really enjoyed getting to give some detailed feedback that I know I won't always be able to make time for, but I'm grateful to be able to give it for now


What I Will Do Next Week


Teach IM2

Record IM2 for edTPA

Reflect on lessons for edTPA

Write edTPA lesson plans (officially)

Grade and give feedback on IM2 work

Teach some of IM1



How I’m Feeling & What’s On My Mind


I feel like I got behind the other classes that are trying to keep on pace together, and we have to play catch-up a bit. The homework materials therefore haven't lined up with where they feel comfortable, and I know I'm going to have to do some adjusting on Tuesday to even things out. I feel a little stuck,  but I'm hopeful I can manage.

The edTPA in general makes me a bit nervous still, and I want things to go okay this week to make sure I have good material to send in. As usual, it stinks that my worth as a teacher (/student/anything) all depends on very short snippets of time, but I guess at least I get to pick the snippets.


What I’m Learning About Teaching and Learning


Sometimes, students are at a different place than you think you are, and it is worth it to think on the fly and change the lesson in order to respond to that. 

It is hard to give the kind of feedback you want to give to your students because there just isn't enough time in the day. Taking the time to do this when you can is very helpful however.

It can be worth it to ignore the "fun" and "creative" ways we can learn math for a bit in order to really explore a series of steps so that we are then able to apply them in fun and creative ways.

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