The Last Day by Aranis Samra

Hello Everyone, 

My last day was a very bittersweet one. I came into the classroom to find a great surprise. My students had decorated the classroom and the desk I sit with "Good Luck" and "Farewell" cards and banners. During the day, students reminisced on the work we did together and stated how much they would miss our time together.  

2 strengths going into FE and now

• Meeting Time deadlines and pacing appropriately while teaching. 
• Interpersonal skills to engage students.

2 areas that you improved

• My first area of improvement is evident through my comfort in teaching and presenting. I am much more comfortable engaging with the class as a whole. I get less anxious about the process of presenting. 
• My second area of improvement is that I am able to create and plan more effective lesson plans. I have enhanced my lessons to create objectives that meet standards for that grade. 

2 areas that you still need to work on,

• An area of development I need to work on is my implementation of technology in the classroom. I would like to find more resources that can engage the students and expand their learning experience to include technology. 
• Another area of development is practicing my use of critical thinking questions. This is important to me because this will also help me in gauging the student's understanding. I have also noticed that upon using these questions, students show that they aren't just retaining information but comprehending its implementation. 

Most fun experience

• The most fun experience during my field experience was playing Math Battles with the students. To close our division lesson, the students faced each other in solving division problems. The students were very energetic and had a great time implementing what they learned. 

Most challenging experience

• The most challenging experience was when there was a technical issue during my Science lesson. While trying to present the wrong presentation opened up. It took a while to try and get the presentation back up. The time pressure, it made it very stressful to combat this issue and have students waiting. 

Best lesson taught and why

• My best lesson taught was my Sequencing lesson for Literature. This lesson was the most effective to me because this lesson felt the most effortless to implement. Students were engaged throughout and really understood the objectives. This lesson was also one where I used a lot of differentiation in what I used to present the content. 

Worst lesson taught and why

• My worst lesson taught was my Surface Tension lesson for Science. When the presentation went wrong it threw the rest of the lesson off. I was thrown off and did not know how to handle the situation. It also made me get nervous for the rest of the lesson.

3 things you learned specifically from your CT

• How to assess and create appropriate for different student needs. 
• Classroom procedures that work for different students. 
• Fearlessness in implementing classroom management. 

3 things you learned about yourself

• I learned that I am more empathetic with my students than I thought. 
• I have learned that I have a great deal of patience. 
• I have learned more about what motivates me and why I love what I do. 

3 things you learned about children.students

• Background matters to the educational impact each student may have. 
• How resilient students are to learning and implementing the content. 
• How creating supportive relationships impacts their work in a classroom setting. 

3 things you learned about the education field)

• The best way to implement what you are learning is through experiencing it. 
• Teachers take a great amount of responsibility for how students feel, learn, and behave in their lives. 
• The importance of differentiation in the classroom especially around events that happen outside of the classroom, like a pandemic. 

What you wish you had done differently

• I wish I found more ways to include technology in the classroom. 
• I wish I also implemented activities that allowed students to have a hands-on experience.

What you are excited about in terms of student teaching

• The opportunity to spend more time with students rather than one day a week. This will help me in being able to engage in creating a more effective curriculum and assessing each student's needs.  

What you are most anxious about in terms of student teaching 

• What I am most worried about is implementing full classroom management.