When I was a child I learned best from hands on activities. I liked to take chances and experiment with things. I think today, even though I am in graduate school, I am the same type of learner. In class and through reading texts I have learned a lot about good teaching practices and content taught in elementary classrooms; but I believe I won't truly understand what makes a good teacher and a good lesson, until I put what I have learned into practice. I am thrilled that UMass Lowell has set up their program in a way that allows me to apply what I have learned in my graduate classrooms, into an elementary classroom. This might sound peculiar, but I am excited to get out into the education field and make mistakes; I know they might be some of the best lessons I will receive. A lesson plan I make on paper might seem flawless, but when implementing it, I know I will find ways in which I can improve it. Having these experiences now as a pre-teacher, will only make me a better classroom teacher in the future.
I am also excited to be back working with children. The last semester of school involved more graduate classroom learning, since it was summer, and it will be nice to be back in an elementary classroom. I miss having those types of experiences where students have an ah-ha moment after they grasped what I taught them; some of my peers were bad at pretending to be elementary students during practicing teaching lessons over the summer.J It will be great to get to experience those teaching moments again when working with 2nd graders on a butterfly’s life cycle. 
In addition, I am just eager to be involved with elementary science again. I was thrilled to do a lesson on butterflies when I was in school, so it will be wonderful to see the students enjoy it, and get to do it again myself.
The one thing I am nervous about is getting observed while teaching. I really cannot explain why I am nervous about it, but it gives me butterflies. I am hoping I will see after the first time, that I should not look at it as an assessment, but as helpful guidance.
Alisha,
ReplyDeleteI'm like you...as much as I'm taught about good classroom practices, I won't fully understand it until I'm doing it myself. Hands-on is the best way to learn how to be a teacher. And like you said, making mistakes is another great way to learn. Guaranteed that if you have a disaster lesson, you'll learn a LOT that day haha. I don't think that will happen to any of us though, at least not at South Row with excellent teachers supporting us.
I don't have any experience teaching yet, but I can imagine it must feel good to get back in the classroom after our summer classes.
I didn't mention being observed on my list of fears, you just reminded me. Eek! That is pretty scary, but I'm sure we'll all be fine...I hope!
I am also a little nervous about being observed in the classroom. However, so far everytime I have been in a classroom it has taken all my mental activity just to focus on what I am doing with the students. For instance, during our first math session at the Murkland I failed to recognize a teacher watching me help a student until she finally introduced her presence by saying "excuse me". Somthing tells me that a good amount of us are going to be so caught up in our lessons and the students that we will probably never notice we were ever being watched :).
ReplyDeleteHi Alisha!
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about the mistakes you make can be the best lessons. I completely agree - I just hope the students aren't impacted too much by my mistakes! I also can't wait to share the excitement with the kids when the caterpillars turn into butterflies! I think that no matter what happens, we'll all have fun and we'll all come out as better teachers because of this experience!
P.S. - sorry we're not very good at pretending to be youngsters :/ LOL
Alisha, I'm excited about teaching actual second graders too! It's going to be great to teach our lessons to the class we write them for, instead of practicing writing plans for an imaginary class.
ReplyDeleteI'm also nervous about being observed. Hopefully with both of us working together we can rely on the buddy system a little bit and do some good teaching!
Alisha- first of all, I would like to defend myself as an acting 6 year old, because I quite frankly believe that it comes pretty natural to me...haha kidding. But in all seriousness- you bring up great points that I didnt think of...like being observed really makes me want to crawl under the first graders desk and hide...or maybe even take a seat on the carpet and blend in....I am really willing to do what it takes! But, like Neil said, we probably will be so caught up in what we are doing that we wont even realize that we are being observed--hopefully. I guess only time will tell, but I am sure we will all do fantastic!
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