Student Teaching Experience and Advice

hi guys it's Anna Fox from genuine teaching and today I'm going to be talking all about student teaching how strengthen is January I know that it's beginning of the spring semester and many colleges at least when I was in college many colleges did their student teaching now obviously you can start student teaching in the fall you can start student teaching the spring some people even have a full year of student teaching for me I started my student teaching in January and I went all the way through me so I just kind of want to give you some advice and my experience when I was a student teacher and then since I am a mentor teacher now to my farm soon teacher kind of tell you both sides of student teaching so let me first start off with my experienced student teaching so I decided to student teach in the second grade cost because I love second grade I actually worked for years throughout my college career at a school working in an after-school program and that's actually the school I decided to do my student teaching at because I worked two hours in the morning from 6 o'clock to 8 o'clock with the before school kids and then I was student teaching from 8 to about 3 something and then right after student teaching I went back to the cafeterias where I did my job to the after-school program and I worked that until 6:00 so I had 12 hour days at this school and this did not even include my schoolwork so I definitely chose the school that I was at because it was convenient for me I knew a lot of the kids already around the school and I was just comfortable with it now if I could go back I probably would have done a little bit more research on my mentor teacher because my mentor teacher was a really nice person but I feel like I didn't learn that much for from her she had a very very very difficult class probably the most difficult class I've ever dealt with in my life I'm even including my own students and on top of that she didn't really have any classroom management in place her exact words when I came in in January were yeah I know my class is really bad I probably should come up with some sort of classroom management but it's already too late in the year so I'll just come up with one for next school year sounds like okay so I walked into the class and they didn't respect me at all and it took a while just for them to respect me there were many days I was at home crying thinking what did I get myself into and I have to tell you that classroom night a management right nowbut classroom community was not there like the kids not only disrespected me they disrespected her they disrespected each other and so this is a really really sad situation so um luckily and eventually I was able to put some my own classroom management procedures in place and I started seeing a turnaround McKidd and they started respecting one another they start respecting me towards the end - we started respecting me more than their actual teacher and when I started giving her back her teaching which I'll go into how I eased into teaching and eased out of teaching but basically when she started taking back over her class she told me she was yeah you know the classroom management routines and procedures that you put into place works really well and I really see a change in my class but you know I don't have that kind of energy store I'm probably not going to continue doing it and there's about a month left and I could I went back to visit because obviously I taught there I mean I worked there so I went back to visit like about once a week and it her class went back to how they were before I started teaching so definitely classroom management and classroom community is the number one key and if you walk into a classroom that doesn't have that it's not too late and you and the student teachers can use classroom management so that was my experience so definitely not the best experience ever but I didn't learn up a lot let me go into some advice for you if you're starting student teaching so first of all I definitely would say research in school that you would really like to student pajetta maybe just go and observe different grade levels go on serve different schools different teachers look online look at teachers websites once you find the mentor teacher that you want to be with I definitely would say meet the teacher see if you're is personalities mix well because that is a big big deal I know some people they literally just come in student teach their mentor doesn't really guide them and then they leave and it's just really it's not a friendly or fun experience now luckily me and my mentor teacher did get along so um there was that but there was another girl student teaching in third grade grab student teaching and her students called her practice teacher and her mentor teacher never talked to her and she always left her along with the kids and it was awful so please please please find a good mentor teacher and once you meet them exchange information exchange phone numbers you can text them if you're running late or exchange email these guys can communicate back and forth and just make sure that you find someone that you can work really well with my next piece of advice is to come up with some sort of calendar now when I myself a student teaching my mentor teacher basically let me do whatever I wanted and she gave me those guidance so I came up with my own calendar now that I myself am a mentor teacher I came up with calendar for my student teacher so I faced it directly off of what I did when I was student teaching so basically the first two weeks I really recommend to just observe I know you're really going to want to get in there and start teaching but you really just you need to get to know the kid you need to get to know the schedule and just the flow of things and just how the classroom works whole community even if you bend this question before an hour here and an hour there you need to observe from start of the day to the end of the day for at least a couple of weeks until you really really get a feel of how things work then I suggest taking over one subject one subject that you really really enjoy to teach so for my student teacher she really enjoys teaching science so what I am doing now that she's observed for two weeks now she's starting to lesson plan so now she's observing and then during our science and social service walk she is planning and instructing that subject this cool entire week and then next week she's going to observe teach assign some social Facebook and then add on the writing book so now she's planning for science social studies in writing and then the week after that she's observing she's teaching science social studies writing and then we're adding in reading and the following week after that we're adding a mess and then she teaches for about five to six weeks entirely by herself she's doing all the planning she's doing all of the teaching she's doing all of the grading all the copying and of course I'm there to guide her if she needs resources I'm giving her resources if she needs help raining I'm there to help her with the planning and I am there to guide her now this is very very very important you want to get feedback from your mentor teacher it's really sad but once you start taking over and you're teaching from the start of the day to the end of the day it's really common sadly for the real classroom teacher the certified teacher as a mentor teacher to leave and go talk to their friends go make copies go work on stuff in the office just anything like they leave the room I'm not saying this is all mentor teachers but it happened to me and it happened to a lot of my friends that once their student teacher was teaching full time they just left as a soft it now yes I do want her getting that experience being in the classroom alone but it's going to be very set aside time and can be really sought out so for example when her university um advisor comes to come and observe her sometimes I also observe her and I give her feedback like formal feedback I definitely give her informal feedback throughout the entire process but there's one where actually - it's her midterm and her final that is just her teaching and just her adviser observing her for those two observations it's highly recommended that I and not in the classroom that way her advisor can see how I could act without me in the classroom so again she's not by herself she has her university adviser but I'm not necessarily in the room so something that mentor teachers really really like is taking initiative now there's a very thin line between not taking the initiative and taking too much initiative now if you're just observing and you're interrupting the mentor teacher when she's teaching now that's taking too much initiative so you don't want to interrupt what's going on you don't want to interrupt the flow but at the same time if you want to help her grade or you want to do a read aloud or there's just something that you're like I'm ready to do this let me try it ask your mentor teacher the worst they can say is I don't think you're ready yet but most of the time they're gonna say absolutely my student teacher even though I didn't have her scheduled for teaching reading and writing it last week on two of the days she taught reading and writing and she did amazing so don't feel like you have to stick to your scheduler yup stick to your observing take initiative walk around help the students just ask the teacher what you can do to make her job easier but not only that what can you do to make your job easier because eventually this class is going to be yours too now that's how I feel it's not my class and I'm giving my class to her it's our class and we're both teaching and I want my students to see her as an equal to me because she is and I don't want them to see me as being better than her when she's observing me and at the same time I don't want them to think oh well my teacher is not teaching anymore so I'm looking to the student teacher and not my teacher anymore like they need to know that you and are working together as a team and that they need to be respectful to both of you and still follow the expectations that are given to them so that goes on to my next topic management you need to learn with the classrooms management is in stick as close as you can to it because the kids are already going through a change with a new teacher and they're going to I'm really sad to say this but they are going to test you and it's not you it's they're trying to figure out your teaching style your management style so if you are sticking really closely to what they're used to it'll be a smooth transition now I'm not saying you can't try out your own thing and put your own spin on your teaching style and your management style because that's the student teaching is for is for you to make and take those risks in a safe environment and get feedback on that not only from your mentor teacher but get feedback from real-life students does this actually work or is this maybe something that doesn't work for you this is the perfect time to try that out remember one thing is pacing my next video that I'm going to upload on this channel is me reacting and watching my student teaching video from almost ten years ago and my number one thing is my pacing I move so slow now I did get my whole lesson done in 30 minutes which was what I needed that time forth but my talking and explanation so so slow so set timers if you need to practice if you need to there are many times that I would practice giving a lesson in front of a mirror no joke just to practice my painting now you're going to be slow that's just how it's going to be everyone slow when they first start and that my number one feedback to anyone teaching when they first start is try to stay on schedule stick to your lesson plans and don't go too fast but don't go too slow because then you're going to lose the kids you're not going to have them engage and trust me take it from someone that topped literally this slow I don't know why I talk to it so I don't know if it because I wasn't sure of what to say I was practicing speaking out loud I don't know like teaching a multi-way guy too but I had to take a public speaking class in Community College as one of my prerequisites for the education degree and I totally get why because you are public speaking all of the time and watching my student teaching video which we'll see next video I can see why I needed that practice doing public speaking but anyways so yes definitely um pacing for sure and lastly get to know your mentor but not only that figure out her schedule you're not just student teaching and being with her when the kids are there you are there from the time that she or he gets to school from the time that they leave now unfortunately some people get there really early and stay really late it's just going to depend on what yours University requires and what your mentor teacher requires I personally I usually get there at 8:00 but since I have a student teacher now I've been getting there at 7:30 with her just so we have 30 minutes before contract time just to go over things because I don't want to just come in and start the date I really want to walk her through the profit of what I'm doing we're going to need extra time to plan we a lesson plan together now she when she starts taking over things I'm definitely going to give her the freedom to the lesson plan at all if she wants to to go and get her own lesson ideas there obviously are things that she has to stick to like my math program and the standards if there's a lesson that she wants to try out by all means I'm in the letter try it out and it will be something that I'll be interested in teaching next years talk to your mentor teacher in just some what they expect do they expect you to do duty with them do they expect you to do the greeting my student teacher is going out to do tea with me she is grading with me some mentor teachers they say you are in charge of lesson planning you're in charge of grading you're in charge of the duty and you're on your own that's how I had to do ad student teacher me I feel like I'm more like in a partnership with my student teacher so you just have to find what works for you what works for you mentor teacher and what works for you guys and your class I hope that answered any of your questions about stoon teaching I definitely can do a Q and a all about student teaching so if you have student teaching specific questions please leave them in the comments below and I'd be happy to either answer them in the comments or if I get a lot I'd be happy to make another video all about student teaching so look out for my next video that is going to be my reaction of my student teaching video from almost ten years ago that will be coming up very very shortly so until next time happy teaching bye guys

Channel: Jennuine Teaching

Views: 9,633

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Keywords: jennuineteaching, teaching

Id: N37yKQjV-kk

Length: 18min 55sec (1135 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 22 2017