3 Skills

If I wasn't focusing on teacher skills, I would say that I need to work on writing my blogs.  They are often unfocused and jumbled.  I forget to write them, and I struggle to come up with 400 hundred word entries.  Thank goodness for Elise, who always reminds me, via G chat, that I better get writing.

Okay teacher skills...

1. I want to work on planning in units.  I plan week to week.  This works for small objectives but doesn't work so well when I have to cover in depth topics.  I lose sight of the end goals and end up being disorganized.  I think these problems would lessen if I planned in units.  Planning was extremely time consuming for me this first year.  Since I am all planned for my subject, I think I will be able to group things better in the Fall.  I can work on this over the summer by helping my first years plan in units. 

2. I really need to work on my closures.  I think closing the lesson is extremely important, and I rarely do it well.  I don't leave enough time in my lessons for a proper closure.  I think it's important to sum up the lesson, and so I hope to master this skill over the summer.  I hope to involve my students in the closure, making them recall what we learned during the class period.

3. I want to work on assessing my students more frequently.  I want to ask better, more precise questions, allow more wait time, and give more affective tests and quizzes.  I had trouble gauging how much my students really learned from any given lesson.  It's important that I improve this skill, so I know when I should move on and when I should slow down.

There are a lot of things I really do need to work on this summer.  I would say classroom management, but my management style is not MTC management style, and I don't think Ben would appreciate me teaching the first years my ways. I hope that summer school this summer is a success.  I am excited to work on these teacher skills, so I may become a better teacher.  I am also excited to be working with the incoming first years.  I hope that I can give them good advice and help them to overcome their fears.  I wish there were first years going to Tunica in the Fall...oh well....

Comments

[elisepatterson]

thanks for the shoutout, boo!

[Jillian Merica]

I want to work on closures too!! I didn't realize how important closures were until I watched on of Courtney's lessons this spring. It helps in so many ways: 1) you focus the lesson, 2) you know if students got the main points, 3) the students know what the important parts of the lesson are. (And, it will help with gauging what the students learned from the lesson, which is another goal you talked about). The hardest part is time management, as you mentioned. I always lose track of time helping kids during independent practice and have to dismiss them without a close.

[Elijah Berry]

Planning for units is probably the biggest thing that is intimidating me right now. My main interest in teaching science was to find some way to foster a sort of systemic-thinking state of mind and I am not sure I'll be able to do that if I can't get my lesson plans connected enough to make things seem like . .  trying to think of a better word here. . .  a system. I really liked Ashley's method of teaching everything from smallest to biggest but I guess I am going to have to see how it works out for me. Hopefully Potts Camp will be kind.