That, class, was much better. Thank you.
On my own again today, except for the sub getting paid to watch me for signs of helplessness...
it's apparent, either due to my teaching style (if I'm allowed to have one yet) or my lack of experience, that I allow the class to get a bit more talkative than MT and her former student teacher/today's sub are accustomed to; I encourage discussion once in awhile, not just hands in the air, and I think it takes time to train a class to adjust volumes to the right level and learn to have more open discussions. In the meantime, I have a sub shushing "my" class as I'm attempting to have a conversation. grrrr...
My struggle has been more with the clock than the chatting, so in my outline/notes for the day has times listed in BOLD RED when each topic and event is supposed to start, end, be at the 1/2 way point, 2 minute warning, 30 seconds late, etc, etc. It worked out almost perfect today, the only subject that got squeezed a little short was Math, and who really needs math these days anyway...
3 comments:
The hardest thing about student teaching (or being a TA for that matter) is working with a teacher who doesn't share your classroom philosophy or way of treating the kids. Don't go shushing my students!!!
I chuckled when I read your post about getting timing down. I suffer from the same syndrome! My master teacher said to take my watch off and put it on the desk or someplace where the kids don't see me looking at it. I've been looking at the clock a lot to keep on schedule...and my master teacher said that the kids look at the clock after they see me do it! This is something that I really need to get better with before I have my next observation. For my first observation, I did not get to my close. Sigh.
Hang in there!
I've heard there are small, easy-to-set timers for the desk, so when I say "work on this for 4 minutes" I stick to the schedule; you'd think with today's technology they could have a voice-activated one that hears me say "4 minutes" and automatically sets itself...
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