First day of teaching: Conquered!

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Add another check to the list, I’ve taught my first and second class. My responsibilities were to cover about half the class period, so around 20 minutes, devoted to the KKK and some of the sources that were in the text. I planned to have the students go over about half of the sources in a think-pair-share activity, which actually worked well. Because so many of the students have Spanish as their first language I figured they would discuss in Spanish which is fine-I just made them accountable for their work by telling them beforehand I would call on each group. A few of the students led the discussion throughout the period and were really eager to answer and give their opinion, which was great but I just need to make sure they don’t dominate the activity! The students in general received me well and I think they were excited to have someone new in the mix.

I taught the same lesson to two groups and it was evident while reflecting on the lesson which group is made up of more intelligent, eager students. Both classes got the gist of the assignment but one definitely took it and ran, while the other got caught on some small details. In general though I did not have many problems with behavior, I just had to turn down some chatty students during the second lesson. David, the headmaster, warned that Spanish students are loud, and he was not joking!

The rest of this week is spotted with some more classes that I’ll be teaching so I am looking forward to that. One of my cooperating teachers, the one I team-taught with this first lesson, commented right away that I am confident in front of the classroom. I feel like fall semester prepared me well for student teaching and I have no reason not to be confident! I know I can handle planning, executing, and reflecting on all lessons. The workload I have is just right for what I should be doing, and I am glad that I have these assignments to work on and have under my belt before I take on my first paid teaching job. If the rest of these 9 weeks continues like this it will be smooth happy sailing ahead.

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