Day 1-2 of my Solo Week

I've been busy planning for my first official solo week. It's been an unbelievable ride so far throughout student teaching. Before I started, I had to take a 28 hour plane ride (which was slightly longer than I was used to). I left the country for the first time...in actuality I left the east coast of the US for the first time. I've experienced an incredible range of emotions from being homesick to being unable to sit still because of all the excitement. Now it's all at a point where I know it is coming to an end. Most of the people in the program are sad to leave Australia, and I am as well but I couldn't have asked for more out of this experience. Once again I've learned that the key word for teachers is "flexible." The teachers with the most specific plans are typically the ones that need to be the most flexible. Things go wrong every day in regards to the schedule and accepting that has been the key to my sanity so far during my solo week. It's time to plan for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday now.

Day 29-31 - First "real" sickness of student teaching

The last few days have been a bit of a blur. It's getting to that point that I've gotten into a routine and I'm really comfortable in front of the class for however long I am given. One thing I've learned is that as a teacher you can't take yourself too seriously. At the end of the day, the students are kids and it's in their nature to be silly and "say the darndest things". For example, one student was looking for rhyming words and he thought "lidge" was a word. After I told him it wasn't a word I had ever heard and we couldn't find it in the dictionary, he insisted it was a word that has to do with a lime. Some teachers would get frustrated by the quasi-argument but it turns out that laughing about it is a million times easier.

Next week starts my solo week and I'm really excited about it. I have the freedom to plan the amount of time we spend on certain things and it'll be nice to really dive in and take full control over the class. This has been an incredibly enriching experience and I couldn't ask for anything more. Unfortunately, it's also an incredibly tiring experience so I'll have to leave it there for tonight.

Day 25-28 -Busy Busy Busy

I've still been taking on more and more responsibilities as time has gone on and there are very few sessions that I'm not teaching at this point. I've been busier than I could have possibly imagined. Luckily for me, I've also learned more than I could have possibly imagined. It's funny that when you have all the time in the world as a student in college it takes hours to plan lessons that you rarely implement in a classroom. Now that I teach every day, more than one lesson in most cases, I've figured out how to really fine tune my thought process about the different strategies I want to use. I've also been given a great opportunity in my placement because I get to teach my lessons to two different groups of students at separate times and I'm able to tweak things as needed. The opportunity to do this has also made me think about different learners and the mistakes I've made before help to make sure that my lessons are working the first time around. It's been a great experience so far and as I come into the final stretch of my placement here in Australia I know I'm going to be able to take an enormous amount of effective strategies back to the United States.

Day 24 - My First Breakthrough

My cooperating teacher does a lot of team teaching with the teacher next to our classroom. We switch so my teacher does the SOSE and the teacher next to us teaches science. We also switch during English for reading and writing. The class I switch with has some more behavior problems than I am used to in my class and it has proven to be a struggle when I'm in front of the class by myself. I've left school very frustrated on quite a few occasions and really started to second guess a lot of the things I had been doing with the other class. I even made adjustments to my lesson plan because the class we switch with isn't as strong with discussions as the class I work with every day. Unfortunately, my adjustments weren't successful the first time around. The students were clearly testing my limits the last few times I had them in class. It got to the point where I needed to say something so after they all came into class I gave them the "I know you can do better" speech. I set up a system where they get two warnings and on the third time they have to change their behavior card in their teacher's room. I assumed that I would need to give it a few days and possibly have to show the students that there would be consequences, but just warning them seemed to be enough and I really get through to them. It was a great end to what had been a somewhat frustrating week.

Day 21-23 - The Halfway Point

It's officially the midway point of my time here in my placement. I think it's a good time to sit and reflect about the process so far. We've been slowly but surely ramping the amount of time that I am in front of the classroom. It's interesting to see how I've progressed since the beginning of the term. My first week I was carried by adrenaline and was just excited to be there in the classroom and taking everything in. Then in week 2 and 3 I started to take on some more responsibility and really took over things as my own and began to gain the respect of the class. Then week 4 I taught a lesson each day (not including the Sports Days). Week 5 has been a lesson each day and sometimes two in a day. It's been a great experience and I really feel like I'm working my way up to my solo week at the perfect time. I know that there is a lot that I have to work on. For example, I had a tough go at behavior management with the class that we switch with. I've been discussing new ideas with my cooperating teacher and will try some of the new ideas once we switch next time.

Day 19 - Back From the Brink

Thursday was a very encouraging day despite a very uneasy beginning. I had a rough week up to that point and it was sort of a make or break moment for me. Wednesday night I spent hours searching the internet and racking my brain to come up with ideas for a worthwhile activity to teach the students about probability and playing cards. I modified an investigation activity that allows students to see the difference between theoretical probability and the data they collect from their activities. Unfortunately, I messed up a bit with my instructions at the beginning and had to field a lot of questions from the students. Eventually the students began to really understand the purpose of the lesson and were able to have a discussion about what they learned and why they needed to know the information. There are lessons throughout the week that won't go as planned, but if a teacher keeps at it and pushes through the bumps in the road the end result can really turn the mood around. I don't say it enough but I really think the best feeling in the world is that moment when a student's eyes open wide and they say "Ohhhh, I get it now!" There were enough moments like that today that will last quite a while.

Day 17/18 - Rough Days

Tuesday was the first day of my SOSE unit on culture. I did an activity that involved analyzing primary documents by answering the questions:

1. What do you see?

2. What information does the picture give you?

3. How could you find out more information about the picture?

I switched classes with the team teacher of my cooperating teacher and it was my first real contact with the class as a whole. I was very disappointed at the way the lesson turned out because it was very hard to manage behavior while trying to learn the students' names for the first time. I knew there would be days like this as a teacher but it was the first day that I felt lost during this placement. I know it just takes a day or two to snap out of it sometimes but it was more stress than I had been confronted with during my placements so far.

Wednesday started off a lot better but tailed off when my cooperating teacher had to leave for a conference about the QCATs (state tests in Queensland). Before she left I was able to teach the SOSE lesson to my regular class and it went really well. I taught the class for the rest of the day and it was a little bit of a bumpy ride. Overall, the class I have is great behaviorally. Unfortunately, they tend to be a little bit chatty at times. I did the typical Quickmaths activity and we discussed some of the problems they've been having on the Quickmaths recently. Tomorrow I'm teaching another Chance and Data lesson for Maths during the middle session. I'm looking forward to it but I have to go plan for it now.

Day 15/16 - First Relief Teacher/Rescheduled Sports Day

Friday was my first experience with a "relief teacher" or substitute in the classroom. It wasn't the typical sub experience though because this particular sub used to be the Deputy Principal at my school so the kids knew him as the person they were sent to when they were naughty. My class is always pretty well behaved (although they are a bit chatty sometimes) and Friday was no exception. We had a lot of maths work to catch up on Friday and started some new English work as well. Everything went well though, and the day flew by.

Monday was my first sports day experience. There were a few hiccups just trying to get the day started but overall it was a really cool thing to see. The school is divided into 4 separate sports houses that span all year levels and the students have to compete in their own individual houses in order to qualify for sports day. Then, those students who perform well in sports day get to move on to the district championships. It's really exciting for the students to be able to get out and run around for a few days as a part of school! They were all disappointed when it was cancelled last week and were very happy to have nice weather at the start of this week so they could do the first half of sports day. Friday will be the second half of sports day and the kids are looking forward to it. We also have visiting Japanese students coming to our school during the week and our class will be meeting them during their LOTE (Languages Other Than English) special. The students obviously have another busy and exciting week. I'm excited also because I'm teaching 2 SOSE lessons and a Maths Lesson during the week. The SOSE lessons are introducing the Culture Unit that I've been working on and my Maths lesson is continuing work on Chance and Data. I can tell already that this week is going to be another good one!