I’m finding that I’m more attuned to the day-to-day role and routine as a teacher. As my mentor said to me at the start of my internship ‘everything comes with experience’ and I know what he means. Every week at the school teachers have been working with schedule changes which involved shortened classroom periods. This has been a good lesson for me in time management and I’m glad I’ve had this experience. For example on Friday the students in all my classes were involved in self-directed class forums. We lost ten minutes per period on Friday due to an assembly taking place during sixth period which is precious time for a teacher. I found my role was to constantly watch the clock and calculate the time each speaker in the group forum had. The students were successful in completing their forums but it was a close run thing. We finished each lesson with only about four minutes left – enough time for me to briefly summarize and let the students know what is coming up for the following week. Multiply that experience by five periods and it makes for a very exhausting day. However, this was good time management skills with regards to bell to bell instruction. I was proud of my students and myself. There they were, leading a lesson themselves that I had planned, staying on task and having a fun time as well. The principal observed me for fifth period on Friday, my largest class and I was very happy to see my students working so well without my intervention. I definitely count this as one of the highlights of my student teaching experience.
As I said at the start of this entry I have two weeks left teaching before my mentor teacher takes over again. The challenge for me is not to be complacent or go into ‘coast mode’ as I enter these last two weeks. I hope I have the confidence to try some new things in my classes before my time is up.
