Week Eight

This week felt a bit chaotic to me. I’m learning more and more each day about how demanding and overwhelming teaching can be. There were several times where it seemed that what I had planned either went half right or didn’t happen. Although it was overwhelming I simply improvised and went with what happened. All in all the students and I had a great week. I just had to practice my improvising skills.

This week, I wrapped up my EdTPA lessons. I was really unsure about what I had chosen to teach for the learning segment. The comprehension skill for the story the students were working on was inferencing so that is what I chose to teach. I was concerned about whether I would teach it well enough to the students, however, I knew that I loved doing it so I gave it my best shot. In the end, I was very proud of my students. They were superstars at inferences and they really enjoyed it! I loved getting to see that strategies they created for themselves to help them. Many of my students used highlighters to highlight clues in the text or listed clues as they read them. I was so proud of them.

I am feeling confident about my EdTPA. I am excited to see how it turns out.

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During one of my math lessons, this week, the district’s Math Instructional Coach came to observe. I definitely was not expecting her to walk in. I don’t think my cooperating teacher knew she was coming in either. What made it worse was that she came in while I was teaching prime factorization which I was not one hundred percent sure on. While I’m not bad at it, I get nervous whenever I teach it because it is my weakest subject.

Thankfully, although I wasn’t doing poorly, the instructional coach was willing to give me pointers on ways that I can improve. I learned about how helpful content area coaches are. While she made me so nervous when she got there I was so thankful for her help in the end!

Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 8 says, “The competent teacher builds and maintains collaborative relationships to foster cognitive, linguistic, physical, and social and emotional development. This teacher works as a team member with professional colleagues, students, parents or guardians, and community members.”

Performance indicator 8L says that the competent teacher, “initiates collaboration with others to create opportunities that enhance student learning.”

This week, I began to learn about the importance of collaboration. It’s unbelievable how much support I received from the instructional coach. She didn’t judge me or make me feel like I wasn’t a good teacher. She built me up and gave me some really good pointers.

While this week felt so chaotic and wonderful at the same time, I am quickly approaching the end of my time at my fifth grade placement. My next blog will be my final blog about my fifth grade classroom. I will beginning my seven week placement in a Special Education Transition classroom with adults ages 18-21.