Adventures In Student Teaching: Week 7 Review

Omg, I just realized I did not post my reflection last week. So here it is a week late. 

Week 7-Self-Esteem Building

         Another week down and another week closer to the half-way point in my student teaching experience. This next week one chapter of my adventure will end and another chapter of my quest will begin. It will be a bittersweet week as I have had a great experience so far and I am looking forward to my new experiences, but at the same time I will have to learn a whole new daily routine. The best part about the switch is that I have already slowly built relationships with my new cooperating teacher and the students as they have been seeing me on the playground for the last 7-8 weeks.

         This week started like any other week with the exception that this week was Nevada Reading Week and the school was having a spirit week full of different dress up days. Monday was mismatch day, Tuesday was read me day: wear a shirt with words on it, Wednesday was a famous person from History day, Thursday was favorite storybook character and Friday was Pajama Day.

 I assisted with before school color guard practice on Monday. I also made copies and quickly prepped for the day. My cooperating teacher and the 2^nd grade teacher I work with had an MDT/IEP meeting and the 2^nd grade teacher was not going to be done in enough time to get her class and get them off to specials. So, I was asked if I would do it and of course I said yes. So for about 10 minutes, I was the teacher for a 2^nd grade class before I went to my 3^rd grade class to give direct services there. Also on Monday, my college supervisor came to observe me teaching a science lesson in 2^nd grade. I was doing the introduction to their new unit on life cycles. My lesson went better than I thought it would minus a couple of technical difficulties. The students really enjoyed it since it was really a hands-on, active lesson.

         On Tuesday, I got to sit in on an Empowerment Staff meeting with the principal and vice principal. Since my cooperating teacher was in an IEP meeting, I took went with a Kindergartener to specials. My cooperating teacher gave me plenty of time to work on different projects as she went to our 2^nd grade class at the end of our prep period and I just met her in our 4^th grade class.

         On Wednesday, I helped out with before school guard practice. I also made final changes to the IEP I have been working on for the meeting on Friday. It was a pretty normal day. On Thursday, my cooperating teacher spent the day at an all day on-campus training. She had a sub so I worked with the sub. Before my cooperating teacher left for her training I met with her to discuss the IEP I had written and the adjustments that I needed to make. The sub went to the 2^nd grade class for me while I went to specials with our kindergarten student. I also picked up some afternoon duties from an instructional aide who was out. I picked up a group of students and made sure that they got to their bus.  

         On Friday morning, I had the IEP meeting that I have been preparing for. I ran the meeting with some assistance from my cooperating teacher when I needed it. I feel that I did a great job handling the meeting. It was a pretty productive day on Friday for me. I got a lot accomplished and even slowly started to hand some of my duties back to my cooperating teacher. On Friday after school, I attended a baby shower for the school principal. 

         This week’s journal focus is on self-esteem building. I really implemented any activities that build self-esteem. The most I have done is tell students that I know that they can do it and show that I care and believe in them. I really don’t know if the school has a program to address this issue. From what I have seen it is just built in to the expectations of the students. To maintain my strong sense of self I am just focusing on what I do best and setting positive goals for myself. I believe that self-esteem is a tiny part of all the domains, because you have to believe in yourself and what you are doing.

         I am looking forward to sharing my experiences from my final week in my resource position and looking forward to sharing my first week of experiences in the general education.