This post is not so much about technology...
I experienced my first full day of teaching on Tuesday this past week. It was ... a whole lot of things: interesting, difficult, fun, nerve-wracking, energizing... and probably a lot of other adjectives. I didn't plan the lessons myself, but I acted as though I was a substitute (TG didn't give me any plans ahead of time). I had to deal with not only new material, but also the issue of filling time because some of the activities did not take the whole hour. I learned quite a few things about teaching and about myself after Tuesday and after watching the video I took while I taught (very awkward and uncomfortable experience, I must say):
1) I need to project my voice more
2) I begin with "OK!..." a lot of of the time
3) I need to get more practice at facilitating a discussion. It takes a lot of skill to be able to keep a room full of 11th and 12th graders talking about sociological culture for 35 minutes, even if you have some questions to start with. At least, it was hard for me since I have ZERO sociological background understanding. TG says it takes practice to know what kinds of things to ask to make students think a little deeper. I found that some of my "deep thinking" questions were worded oddly and didn't make much sense to the students. And while I really did try to keep the conversation going, it got to the point that I just had to say, "Ok we are done for today."
4) I need to work on not letting my stress from previous hours show in my next classes. My 3rd and 5th hours were particularly aggravating, and I could hear a change in my tone in 6th hour. I should work on trying to "start fresh" with every class -- they didn't know what happened last hour and they definitely weren't responsible for it, so why should I act like they were?
5) Using an overhead projector is an art form. I have trouble coordinating transparencies so that my students are listening to what I'm saying instead of just copying numbly from the screen.
Can I also say how frustrated I am that 9th graders don't seem to know how to take notes individually? This is absolutely something I need/want to teach my students next semester. High school kids really should not be given fill-in-the-blank notes, and I think that doing this in the 9th grade is doing a disservice to both the kids and their future teachers, who will have 10th grade students that can't take notes on their own.
I hope everyone has a great weekend! :D
3 comments:
Caroline,
Your posting about your experiences and feelings during your first day of teaching was so honest and genuine. It's great that you used the camera to capture everything and will view it later to reflect on your hopes to improve for future classes. I can't believe that you had no lesson plan to start from as an organizational tool for the structure of the class. It's great that you maintained your composure and survived :)
Thanks for sharing this, Caroline. Telling you that we’ve all been there (and often are STILL there) may be cold comfort, but hopefully it is some comfort.
It is hard to let go of what happened “1st hour” and have a clean emotional slate for “3rd” One important thing to remember is that a rough period VERY often has nothing to do with you, but owes more to the combination of interpersonal issues at play on that given day…things you haven’t much control over.
I love the challenge of forming good questions. It’s complex and interesting, and it combines the intellectual, interpersonal and psychological in interesting ways.
One decent online resource that explores questioning is the “Questioning Toolkit” at http://www.questioning.org/Q7/toolkit.html
Caroline,
Congrats on your first full day of teaching. I finally had my first full day teaching yesterday and I can definitely sympathize with you ☺ I agree with you using an overhead is truly an artform, it is the primarily technological device I will use in my classroom so I’m under pressure to learn it sooner rather than later. The comical part of it is the fact that this low-tech device is still so challenging to use in the classroom that it makes me nervous for introducing other technological devices.
I too noticed during my classes I had a tendency to hold on to issues that arose in the previous period, which I too noticed is something that is unfair to the students and I will make a concerted effort to avoid this in the future. One frustration I have also encountered in the classroom (that you also shared) is the fact that we need to be SO explicit and clear about what we say otherwise the students are lost. It is almost as if we have to speak like good books are read –which sounds near impoosible. This will be a very challenging endeavor that I will try and work on. Communication plays a huge role in how we interact with everyone, not just our students but as individuals in life. Oh, how fun learning is, but also just as painful.
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