Student Teaching: Week 7

What I Did This Week

Monday: received my first dose of the COVID vaccine, took a brief tour of the school building/got acquainted with the space, held an office hour, graded papers, did various administrative tasks

Tuesday: met students in person for the first time, learned some more about the building, filmed a video response to student questions alongside other student teachers, edited and posted the questions video, answered student questions during the asynchronous time in class, ran classroom support tasks (hole punching, distributing/retrieving items, cleaning and sanitizing due to COVID, etc.), attended an IM2 planning meeting, worked on a few test rewrites before the Thursday/Friday exam, graded papers, held an impromptu office hour

Wednesday: taught IM2 (final edTPA lesson), answered student questions during the asynchronous time in class, graded papers, provided administrative support, caught up to speed with IM1

Thursday: taught IM1, talked with independent study students who are mostly new to me, answered questions of IS students both in our class and in others, graded papers

Friday: gave an IM2 test, attended advisory, taught IM1 twice, graded papers


What I Will Do Next Week: A Reflection

Teach IM1 - this happened and went better than I expected!

Teach IM2 - the edTPA segment is over! I'm excited to see what comes next for IM2 in terms of planning/teaching now that the pressure is off.

Adjust to hybrid teaching - this was definitely a learning curve, but I'm feeling a lot better after a few class periods now to try it out. It definitely isn't ideal but we're working with what we've got.

Learn about the school building - I know a lot more now than I did a week ago (like the fact that Taylor Swift's Teardrops on my Guitar music video was filmed there??? they constructed the bed set in the drama room which is literally across the hall?!!!!), but I'd love to know a bit more about the upper floors just to gain some confidence.

Do a deeper dive into the edTPA materials, since all of the classes for it will have been taught - I didn't really end up doing this yet, but I'm hoping to work on it some during the coming asynchronous time


What I Will Do Next Week

Teach IM1

Teach IM2

Grade and return IM2 tests

Have a grading meeting/discussion/learn more about how grading works for IM2

Attend a department meeting

Finish some teaching side projects for teachers!


How I’m Feeling & What’s On My Mind

This week was pretty okay. Hybrid teaching is difficult, but I'm getting the hang of it and figuring out how to juggle even more balls than before. It's really nice to see other human beings in person and interact and laugh. The students are also awesome and it's nice to meet them not just through a screen, for those that are in person.


What I’m Learning About Teaching and Learning

I'm really enjoying putting up a second camera so that students can see the whole classroom during this hybrid situation. There's a barrier between the online and in person students -- online can't see body language or other physical answers and in person can't read the chat and sometimes can't hear -- but doing that helps to tear it down where I can. Trying to read the chat out loud and revoice students who are too far from the microphone helps with this too.

These days are absolutely wiping me out. I know part of it right now is my weird living situation, since dorms aren't exactly the same as living on your own as an adult, but I'm a bit intimidated for what already feels like an extreme lack of time in my day. My body is just gone by the end of it. Hopefully as we get more sunlight in the day that will also help me improve and be able to tackle more things. I'm not on board yet with this 40 hour work week situation and I'm curious to see what tips and tricks I find for dealing with the exhaustion.

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