What have we learned???

It's hard to believe that the only thing left between me and student teaching is our final presentations (and maybe a few assignments that I need to finish up). When I look back over the past 15 weeks, I can't believe how much I have learned and grew as an educator.

For our last 412 lab of the semester we were tasked with adapting a Life Knowledge lesson from the National FFA website to fit into a 25 minute zoom lesson. I choose a lesson on "First Impressions". 

The National FFA Box has a lot of beneficial life knowledge lessons for middle and high school students. Check them out at https://ffa.app.box.com/v/lifeknowledge.

Using a prepared lesson came with some advantages and challenges. I liked that all of the resources and content knowledge I needed for the day was already available to me, which definitely saved me some time while preparing for my lesson. However, adapting a 50 min lesson to be covered and understood in 25 minutes was a challenge, as I had to make some decisions on what was absolutely necessary for student learning and what we could remove. Additionally, this was the first lab that we had to present over zoom. I wanted to make sure my lesson was both informative and engaging for my students, so I had to try to get creative in how I could get student participations throughout the lesson. I chose to incorporate lots of open discussion, a few poll everywhere questions where students could submit answers and interact with other students responses, and finally a google forms quiz to check their understanding. 

Overall, I was happy with how my lesson turned out. After watching my cohort members present, I want to improve on my variability of instruction by incorporating some of their ideas into my own teaching. Specifically, I loved how Maddie was able to quickly toggle between screen sharing and gallery view on zoom, which made class discussions seem a little more natural as you could see everyones face. Additionally, there were many different polling applications that were brought up, which allow for more student interaction and checks for understanding. 

A few of the polling applications that can easily be incorporated into any lesson to increase student engagement. 

Throughout this semester I really have felt myself grow as an educator. While I still have a long way to go, I feel more confident in my ability to prepare and deliver an engaging lesson. As I wrap up my final blog of the Fall 2020 semester, I want to take a moment to thank my professors, cohort members, cooperating teachers and everyone else that has helped me to get this far. 

My journey is far from over, as student teaching is about to begin, but I am thankful for the lessons I have learned throughout this first step. 

Questions: What advice would you give to a student teacher before they step into the classroom for the first time?