My Blog

Week 7 of student teaching has been a very stressful week for me. Not only did I begin a new Unit, Short Jump Rope, but I have also been taping for the edTPA and I had my 2 nd observation on Thursday. On Monday my cooperating teacher received a call during my 3 rd period that her mother passed away, causing her to have to leave midway through the day. That afternoon I was watched over by either the principal or assistant principal of the school. Also, because of the passing, my cooperating teacher has been pre-occupied with family matters that I have had to take a larger command in the development of the unit lessons. Normally, this has not bothered me in the past weeks, but this unit has been the one I was most worried about because it is a very difficult lesson to teach. Trying to make sure I am hitting all the intricate points of the jump rope sequence while keeping students on task and assessing and giving useful feedback to over 20 students per class, along while attempting to ...

In class this week we ended out long jump rope portion of the jump rope unit. I was very impressed with the growth of coordination of my two 2 nd -grade classes over the past week and a half. Coming into the unit my cooperating teacher warned me that the 2 nd -graders would be my most challenging grade level because of their struggles from last year.             At the beginning of the unit, I was worried because the students were exactly as my teacher said. There was no coordination among the students. One thing I did recognize though, was that there was no role of communication between the students at this level. Students knew to begin when I said “go,” but would not stop and wait for my cadence after failing. Because of this recognition, along with teaching the correct sequence of movements to develop the progress in the jump rope, I also implemented specific duties to each group member, with the outside rope hole (Rope Holder...

This week was the most fun I have had as a student teacher. It was the final week of the dance unit, and Tuesday was PE’s “Winter Dance”; The annual dance the PE teacher hosts for the students which the students dress up in formal attire and perform all the dances they have learned over the past 2 weeks while I got to assess their overall productivity. My 4 th period for this day was also my first evaluation. This was a lot of fun to host, and the students all did a wonderful job demonstrating not just the dancing skills they have obtained, but also their abilities to be considerate, asking politely to dance with partners, and respecting social spacing during dances. I was very proud to be a teacher that day.             I also had the opportunity to branch away from my cooperating teacher and volunteer for the school’s After School Family Fun Night on Thursday, where I oversaw the “Dinosaur Egg Race” station. This event was muc...

This week, I continued the second week of my two-week Dance unit. Unfortunately, my two-week unit has been pushed to a three-week unit because of the two call-off days due to the cold. Luckily, I was able to take advantage of my days off by catching up on lesson plans and reflections.             In 3 rd and 4 th grade I concentrated most of my teaching on the 5-6-7-8 dance and teaching the Waltz Box Step. I was tepid about teaching the Waltz, considering it is a partner dance and the students were not into it at all. They are very uncomfortable with the idea of dancing together. To ease the embarrassment, my cooperating teacher told me to allow the students to pick their own partners. I followed her recommendation, which helped immensely. Being with their friends of choice, they were willing to be “silly,” yet able to stay on tasks the discomfort was greatly lessened.          ...