A Learning Experience

Today I have learned a lot about myself as a teacher, and this will not be a real long entry because I just want to do a short reflection on my experience. Throughout the first few weeks of school there has been a lot going on in and out of the classroom (for students) and last week was our first full week of getting into the subject/content area for the year. I had my apprehensions going into today's lesson because Miss Richardson is still working to set up guidelines and expectations for work time and the environment in general. However, I was very excited about the opportunity to teach for two entire sessions and use what I have learned from my observations over the past weeks and also add in my own style.

I did a lesson on expanded notation and refreshed the students on decimals (place value). Overall I think the lesson was a positive experience for the students and they were able to gain something from both my teaching and the time spent in rotations. I believe that my strengths in the lesson included starting the lesson and bringing the students to focus, transitioning between different activities and topics during the lesson, and asking the students questions throughout the lesson to check their understanding.

This experience has also sparked some opportunities for improvement in my teaching. One part of the lesson became confusing because I thought I understood how to read decimal numbers, but found that they have the students do it a bit different than what was shown in the curriculum book. After thinking about the way Miss Richardson quickly explained it to the students, I believe it actually helps the students to think about the number and how it is formed. I appreciated her input, but hope in the future to be more aware of these things before I work with the students. I have to remember to ask if I have any hesitations or apprehensions going into the lesson because it is better to know ahead of time. I also want to work on my time management during the lesson. There was one activity that I was unable to do with the students, but am glad that I had too much prepared than not enough. I think I was afraid that I would rush through the material and not have enough for the students to do, but instead the opposite was true.

Today we also had a PD session on assessment and the purpose of strategic questioning. We watched various classroom teachers implement closed and open questioning, as well as strategies used to check students understanding throughout the lesson. This session has given me the opportunity to really think about what my purpose or intent is for each lesson I prepare. This was a focus in many of my classes at St. Norbert and in the excitement of being active in the classroom I have let this approach slip from my mind. This week my goal is to remember to do this when preparing my lessons and make sure that the learning focus for the students is clearly indicated.