Keeping Everything Together

Student teaching has officially begun and already life is beyond hectic. People can warn you that student teaching will be busy beyond belief, but you almost don’t believe all the warnings. Well, they are real and I have officially figured this out. What I have realized from this semester so far is that plans NEVER seem to go as you want them to. My CT and I have changed our plans for this semester multiple times. I knew that as a teacher, you change your mind and have to rearrange many times. This is part of the deal; we work with our lesson plans and change them to make them work for our classes. I have learned that having lesson plans made in advanced does help; just scheduling certain dates becomes the tricky part. Having to move the dates around can be frustrating at times, but seeing the students benefit from these decisions helps ease the mind. Reflection over these decisions has helped a lot as well. This is why our teachers stress to us just how important reflection time is. Planning so far has been by far the most difficult part of my student teaching. I know this will only get easier as time goes on and I gain more experience.

            Now to focus on the classroom itself, the students are having a problem staying motivated. Grades are not giving them the push to try harder and do their best. This seems to be the low of the school year. Where students just have a hard time getting back into the groove and do not believe their grades at this point matter as much. So how do we, as teachers, motivate our students to keep going and not give up now?

            I found a list of ideas to help us keep students from hitting rock bottom. http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/21-simple-ideas-to-improve-student-motivatio/

This link has a list of 21 ideas to help teachers get out of the same routine. I mean, we teachers need to change it up every now and then also. Some ideas are of having the students feel like they have more power over their decisions in the classroom. I think sometimes we forget to let students have some control, we get so caught up in planning and hoping that it is engaging that the students feel like robots doing the same thing. Group work can only go so far to motivate students. To go along with this point, my CT and I have decided to have our students pick a book of their choosing to read. They will then do a book report over said book. Students will then connect their book to something happening today in the real world. Our students were excited by the fact they were able to pick out their own book. Giving them that one thing, they already were okay with the assignment. Hopefully they will end up completing and turning in their assignment. Only time will tell.

            Another assignment we will be doing towards the end of the year is an alternative book report over Night. Students will be able to choose their own project to complete over the novel. My CT and I are hoping to see that if the students get to choose their own project, they will be more invested and motivated to do the project.

            Other than the students not staying motivated, the students are behaving rather well. They see me as their teacher and treat me with respect. I am hoping this will continue on when I take over and teach all day.