The transition class and Wellness 10 have been very smooth for me. In wellness we have been doing some different warm ups where students face off against each other and the non-winner goes for a “turkey lap” where they wave their arms like the turkey that can’t fly. Much to my surprise students have been buying into it. Only a few protest the lap. I think that part of the reason is that my partner Mr. Manson and I partake in the warm ups and do the turkey laps ourselves. The supervising instructor also gave me a piece of his pedagogy to chew on. He suggested that we go out and start getting the nets set up for the kids to get into the lesson a little faster. His reasoning for this was that we “should let the kids know that we’re here for them”. In other words teachers are here to work with kids to help them learn not just to make students do work to learn. I also started to change my classroom management techniques this week. In the past I have sometimes used my voice to regain control of a classroom. This week I have tried to focus on using my words and body language to regain control of my classroom. To be more specific when I want attention I have been moving towards eye contact and raising my hands when students talk over me and I need their attention. I have also tried to remind them periodically as I go through my lesson that they need to listen so that we can get to were we need to go in terms of content knowledge. I was amazed at how fast I saw results. Occasionally it took a few minutes to simmer them down, however, with more practice at it they might learn the expectations better and become more efficient in following my indications for attention. When my professor Rick Seaman came to watch me teach, my partner and I had a highly successful lesson. We modelled a similar lesson as the one I saw success with last week. Each student received a booklet and went around the room answering questions about graphs I had hung up around them room. There was a lot of good debate and tutoring that happened naturally. Most of the students worked hard to complete the assignment. There were a few that attempted to get off a little easier, but I refused to let them sit out. Rick made a comment about my management, I slipped and raised my voice a little bit at one point in the lesson. Rick mentioned that I seemed a little stressed and that I should start running after school. I will admit that I am a high strung person, and that stressed was a sever understatement of the feelings I felt throughout pre-internship. I was intrigued to analyze my lesson after and observe how pressure and stress affect my lessons. Similarly to students having a bad day and being less productive, teachers are human to and their lives outside of the classroom come into the classroom as well. If I am going to continue down this career path I am going to need to take good care of my self in all aspects of life so that I can be the best teacher I can be.
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Tyler – did you feel that your stress lessened at all over the course of the three weeks? Also, you mention: “He suggested that we go out and start getting the nets set up for the kids to get into the lesson a little faster. ” – That’s an interesting perspective – what do you think about that strategy?
My anxiety was very up and down, but I don’t think that it went down over the three weeks. Personally, I am a high strung person as is, but I was always rushing to have something planned and manage the curricular and co-curicular activities. Finally, I think that my stress was coming from my feelings that I wasn’t reaching all students in my class. Which, was extremely difficult considering the knowledge gap between the highest academic achievers in my class compared to students who were not motivated by school and have learning gaps. I really liked it, I am a huge advocate for relationships with students. Letting the kids know we are here to work with them not make them work is a relatively good concept to follow because we are not teaching students we are teaching people. Furthermore, those peoples needs extend beyond the curriculum, they have emotional, psychological, and physical needs (food/water) swell and it is still a teachers duty to make sure they are being met. Although another concept I was introduced to was that in the lessons we should be making sure that students are working harder than us. Which, I agree with this approach once the lesson has started because people learn by doing, so it makes sense that the more “work” or doing students do in classrooms the more they will learn.