I was excited to teach my literacy lessons as I am to teach all my lessons. The lessons That I taught were all similar to what my CT has done in previous years. My CT also did a similar lesson before I took over to give me an idea of how it might look. This was helpful not only for me, but also for my students. For my students to have a similar lesson prior to mine made the transition to my teaching easier when the class had some idea of what was going to be expected of them in the first few lessons.
I feel that my lessons went well. I was surprised how well the students behaved for me during my lessons even while my CT was not in the room. Class management was my biggest concern entering GLT. I had been in charge of the class multiple times while my CT was out of the room and it did not always go as well as I would have liked. This may have been because it was the end of the day or during a time where I was not so sure what they should be doing because my CT had to leave without briefing me.
The first two lessons focused on one mentor text where they had a chance to notice how the mentor text arranged things and we had a chance as a class to go over these and make a class copy with notes. The following lessons followed this same format and that made it easier in my opinion for the class to notice things that were the same and different from the previous texts. With each mentor text the lessons went better. I felt like I had control of the classroom and the students were staying on task for the most part.
If I had this to do over I may have changed the amount of time spent noticing on mentor texts after the first one. There were many students that finished quickly and I would have liked to have something more than just trying to get them to expand on what they have done.
I will not be continuing to teach writing, but I knew this before I started. My CT did not want to give up literacy completely yet. By the end of my GLT I was ready to have a break from it, but I would feel confident if I was asked to continue teaching.
I would have liked to have done some lessons that may have been more entertaining to my students, but I think that most of my students learned what I wanted them to learn.
The thing I feel I most need to work on after GLC is planning my time better. i do know now how I would plan my time for the lessons that I did, but some things I guess you just need to try before you know.
classroom management was also one of my big concerns going into guided lead teaching, Tim. I understand where you are coming from completely. I feel that MSU prepares us well for teaching the various subjects in our teaching classes, and gives us lots of time in the classroom for our placements but they do not prepare us very much in classroom management skills. This is vital because having a class under control and respecting you as a teacher is the beginning of having a class that responds well and learns, without this you cannot truly have a successful lesson. I feel that you learn classroom management skills when you are in your undergrad classes doing your placement, however, you are only in these classrooms for about 4 hours per week so the amount you can learn, try, and experience while here is limited.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I always heard from teachers and interns alike was that you have to start the year off strong and strict in order to ever have the kids under control. You cannot begin the year lenient because then the students will take advantage of you. I know this is true especially in urban districts where kids tend to have more behavior issues so I am curious as to what your attitude was with your students in the beginning of the year and if this might possibly have effected the issues you had with your students recently.
Your lessons sounds interesting. I think it is a great idea to present similar texts to students. By doing so, you can have students becoming more familiar with different styles of writing and the similarities between them, I think this is a wonderful skill for students to learn and become more fluent readers and comprehenders. I am curious as to the genre that you were introducing your children to and how you presented the material to them.
My teacher also still teaches writing and did not want to give up Language Arts entirely, not because she didn't feel I could handle it, but simply because she loved it so much and wanted to continue teaching it, I feel that I teach lessons that are quite engaging and my students enjoy them especially compared to the style of my CT. I do feel as though I am engaging my students. However, at times I have felt the same way that you do by wanting to teach some lessons in more exciting and "entertaining" ways. It's interesting because going into this year you think you will be able to do such amazing things and have so many goals but it is much different once you are actually teaching and have so much to accomplish and so much on your plate.
I agree that time management is a skill I need to work on as well. I think I as interns this is a crucial skill. This is something that really only comes with practice and trial and error. My CT said that all interns have an issue with time management. I know by the end of the year this is a skill that we will have improved on a lot!