Final Reflection

            Then end of the journey is here and the beginning of a new journey starts. This semester has been one of the best learning experiences of my college career. Through the lab component of 412, it became evident very quickly that students are not always paying attention, grasping certain concepts, or interested in the material. However, I believe that I have learned new concepts to revert these feelings. Through the lab component, I have been able to work the bugs out of my teaching methodology and I feel confident in where I am today.

After taking this course, I am better suited for my professional career with the skills that I have obtained in this lab. I am more organized in thought and believe in myself even more. Furthermore, I have become more apt to planning my lessons and activities with more thought.

The lab reflections were a great help to me, after presenting, I would write down the things that went wrong in the lesson, but I would also write down the things that went right in the lesson. This helped me piece together future lessons of what would work and what I thought I needed to improve on. By having a reflective blog, I was able to see how other students did in each of the labs and I was able to learn from their experiences. Furthermore, I was able to share my experiences for the cause.

To make the lab better, I feel that the lab packet should be reviewed before the start of the year to ensure dates are accurate and that all assignments are in their rightful place. I think the overall lab was a great experience and it should not have any changes.

Leadership Lesson

Before I can begin to student teach, I am required to teach a Life Knowledge Lesson at my cooperating school. Over Thanksgiving break I went to my cooperating center to see how I could incorporate this lesson into my next couple days. After speaking with the teacher, we decided to have the lesson the following Monday before the school's break.

I began to prepare for my lesson and setting things up. I feel that the lessons provided were very dry, especially since they were meant for 100 minute lessons. As a result, I had to severely cut out some of the activities to make it fit the 43 minute time limit. This made the content of my lesson very dense and compacted. I felt that my lesson was very dry because it was hard to incorporate activities into the short lesson.

Overall, the lesson went well, I did make some mistakes. For example, I called on students whom I knew but was more reluctant to call on others who I did not know. I started to call on more students as time went by, but it was hard to incorporate students who I did not know. In the future, I will need to step out of my comfort zone more to include everyone into my lesson.

Micro Teaching

Before we begin our adventure student teaching, we are given a unique opportunity to teach in a high school setting for 3 days. In those three days, you learn more than you will in any lecture hall for 3 days. The main reason is that if you mess up, you will get to see the student again the following day. Therefore, it is important to do well out of the gate, it will set the stage for how your week will go.

Day 1

In my case, I thought I did well the first day for what I was expecting, but it definitely could have gone better. My issue was that I asked questions and oh boy, I got answers. The classroom management on my part allowed for students to chime in freely and without structure. (ouch). On the bright side, I definitely had the students interest in the subject matter and they did not feel embarrassed to answer. I would be up to do it this way in the future, if the students could understand the importance of listening to others and waiting their turn. Since this was high school students, I had to take them back to kindergarten on the second day.

Day 2

Back to kindergarten we went. I started out by addressing my classroom expectations on how I will accept answers. From this point on the students did well in how they answered. This made the classroom easier for me to keep track of and monitor how the students were learning. All in all, I believe that day 2 was my best day, I don't feel that I missed out on anything.

Day 3

Day three started out well, however, I do not believe that is how it finished. The reason being, I brought the game Jeopardy into the picture. I do not think it was the students fault, but more my fault. When I asked a question they would quickly reply with the answer by raising their hand before I was done reading. As a result, I was unable to tell who raised their hand first. I quickly addressed the issue and continued. As we played, I noticed some of the things that could have gone better. Having buzzers could have been really helpful. A clicker for me to move to the next side without having to be at the computer would have been better.


Overall I was very pleased with how I did for my first time in front of students for several days. I received good feed back from my those who evaluated me and I put it in motion when I could. I feel confident and ready to step into the classroom and effectively give instruction.