Student Teaching

I have visited both of my student teaching placements already.  I am equally excited for both of my placements as they are both very different and will be different experiences.

My first placement is in a 3rd grade classroom in a very diverse neighborhood.  When I went and visited the classroom I could see that I would be learning a lot of classroom management skills.  It may of just been the day that I was there, but there was some reluctant students who didn't really want to participate while I was there.  I introduced myself to the students, and they were able to ask me questions.  After that I stuck around to see how the class worked.  They were doing a social skills lesson where they were working giving compliments.  There has been some bullying issues going on in the classroom, and in this lesson they were working on being bucket fillers.  (See the book Have You Filled A Bucket Today?)  They were to write a compliment about one of the students in the class of their choice, and then the teacher assigned them a student they don't normally talk to and were told to give them a compliment as well.  Their compliments had to be more than just face value compliments.  One little girl got up and told her compliment about the student she doesn't normally talk to, "I know I don't normally talk to you, but you are a good illustrator and you are very nice."  It was interesting to sit there and see the interactions and what they came up with.  I'm also very excited because they have alot of technology that I can work with (smartboards and iPads).  I haven't had a lot of chances to work with these kind of gadgets and I'm ready to learn!

My second placement is my special education placement.  I will be working mainly with 4th and 5th graders as it was set up a month ago.  This experience will be more different than what I was used to.  During my Phase II, I was able to see a successful co-teaching relationship.  The special education teacher worked directly with the second grade general education teacher.  They taught lessons together, and did everything together.  The special education teacher did some pullout throughout the day, but rarely did the general education teacher teach on his own.  This experience will be different in the fact that, this teacher does alot of pull out, and moves from classroom to classroom.  She does do some co-teaching, but it isn't like what I saw during my Phase II.  It will be interesting to see how this teacher handles going back and forth and managing her time with all of the students. 

I'm super excited to get going with my student teaching, but I'm not excited for the early start of January 2nd, but then again I get two weeks off during student teaching, where normal college students only get one week. 

In other news I am out visiting my sister having an absolute blast.  I will be posting another blog toward the end of my stay talking about all the fun activities we have done.  Off to make supper with the sisterbear! 

I am missing a very important someone though...can't wait to snuggle up with her when I get home...miss you Bella! Oh yea I miss my mom and dad too!