Student teachers: to have or have not?

I've heard a lot of reasons to not have a student teacher. I've heard a lot of reason for having a student teacher. I can see both sides, especially in the core subjects, or in a critical class that has a state exam or is required for graduation.

Not to say that Spanish isn't an important class (like I'd want to invalidate my own job!) but I think there's no real reason to not have a student teacher if the opportunity presents itself.

Let's lay down the ground rules: You have to stay in the classroom and actually observe the student teacher. When I was in college, both of my cooperating teachers were the kind that would disappear and never actually observe me or offer any advice. I feel this was extremely detrimental to me and that my early career suffered for it. The first time I had a student teacher, I crossed my heart and promised her that I would sit in the class and observe her work and provide as much feedback as I could. And I have kept that promise ever since, even now with my fifth student teacher.

Hosting a student teacher is not vacation time. Looking back, I now get angry at my cooperating teachers for abandoning me, and mad at my young, naive self for not speaking up and asking for assistance. I don't want anyone to go through the same experience as me, and so I make sure they know that I will be there and I will be working with them to learn and grow. And I'm not gonna lie, it's a lot of work! Not only do I have to complete mid-term and final evaluations for the university, I have to give the day to day feedback. If a lesson didn't go so great the first time, you have to talk through what went wrong and discuss how to improve it. And the hardest part is not telling them what to do, but to let them figure out what could work better. And then, you have to sit through the next class and watch the adapted lesson, assuming you have that class level again. And if you have more than one prep, you have to repeat the process for that class too.

Sometimes, I can, in fact, slip away. Our department has a separate office, and if I have seen a lesson, it went well, then during the next class I may skip out on observing and go work on organizing the office. And believe me, it needs organizing!

Not an actual picture of the office, but there are striking similarities

I can not stress enough how important it is as a cooperating teacher to be present and observant. A student teacher with no feedback will have no idea whether or not they are doing well, or meeting school and state requirements, and they will not be able to come up with ideas if they hit a road block or discipline issue, etc, if they can even recognize one! If you're going to take on a student teacher, it's a fine balance of work to do, and work you can get done for the future. But it's totally worth it, in my mind!

End of the year reflection

Well, another year has flown by and I think I went most of the year without posting a single blog. Oops! But teachers, you know how it goes!

I have grown a lot this year, and it's not because it was forced on me (thank goodness!) but because I had the opportunity to! I had the most amazing group of students this year on top of small class sizes. Not having the stress of dealing with poorly behaved students combined with less grading to do opened the opportunity to assess and improve what I am doing in the classroom. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity, and proud that I really took advantage of it!

I have turned my classroom into much more technologically centered. This is mostly due to the fact that all my students were provided iPads by the school this year. This had both a positive and negative effect on my classroom environment. Yes, kids were playing games on their iPads when they should have been learning (nothing a little tap on the desk and a threat to take it away didn't fix), but, and this is especially true with my freshmen, they loved ANY excuse to use their iPad, even if it was - gasp - classwork!

One big thing that I changed, and that needed to be changed, was my Bell Ringers. For years, our school had SMART Boards, and I had adapted all of my lessons to this interactive tool. Then last summer, they took it all away and gave us a large flat screen TV with AppleTV. No more interactive activities. I just could not come up with a way to adjust my lesson plans to this change that I felt was satisfactory, and so for the longest time, I changed nothing, and I had opening activities with absolutely zero accountability. Then in April, I woke up one day and decided that making any change, even if I don't think it will be completely satisfactory, is better than keeping things the same. So, I changed the entire way my lesson plans are presented to my students - from a Notebook file to an MSWord document.

I was skeptical on the effectiveness of the change, going from something seemingly technologically advanced to something simpler, but sometimes simple is good. And this experiment proves that. The same information appears on the document as it did on the notebook file, but the Word document allows much more flexibility in the presentation. Everything is on one page, where previously I had separated them, so students can see the objective statement, the agenda for the day, and if they have homework that night as soon as they walk in the door. And last, but not least, a word document allows for a much greater flexibility in the Bell Ringer. I can post a link (and a QR code for easier access) to a Google Form Survey, or a code to a Socrative or Kahoot Quiz. Kids can log in and complete the activity while I hand back papers and take attendance, and then we can jump right in and start class.

I am really happy with the changes I have made this year and will continue to use next school year. I also want to continue this growth and hope that I continue including new and fun activities in my classroom!