Baldacci Student Teaching Experience

Wow, this week has been a crazy week, starting at a new school and the coronavirus. This week has taught me a lot as a new teacher. First, I had a great first experience as a new teacher at Summit Hill Junior High. On my first day I had the opportunity to sit down with my cooperating teacher and discuss my plans for the seven weeks I am there. Our conversation was very productive and assisted me in identifying the goals I would like to accomplish. Obviously, these plans have changed over the course of the last few days, but I believe I have established a good foundation at Summit Hill starting off. For my first week, I was able to observe the classes that I will be teaching. I found observing to be very helpful because it allowed me to started to learn some of my students' names and understand the culture and procedures of the school. The next thing that I enjoyed was having my first experiencing teaching at school. On Friday, my cooperating teacher was out for the first half of t...

My final week at Sandburg was bittersweet. There are a few points, I want to reflect on as well as look forward to. I want to reflect on how I have grown as an educator these past 9 weeks. I also want to touch on what I am looking forward to my next placement at Summit Hill. During my time at Sandburg, I had the opportunity to grow as an educator. When I first started, I was nervous and anxious about student teaching, but as time went on I became a confident educator. I now feel comfortable standing in front of students and confidently can teach a lesson to mt students. I have learned that I can create an entire month’s worth of successful lessons that not build off each other but engage my students as well. I feel I have completed the goals that I wanted to accomplish while at Sandburg. I made sure I took the advantage of having other professionals to lean on for support, encouragement, and conversation to bounce ideas off of. When talking to other teachers I was able to learn abou...

Week 8 of teaching was GREAT!! Knowing that I am one week away from the end of my first placement is bittersweet. I am really loving my first placement and can see myself teaching in the high school setting, but I am excited to start at a new school to gain more knowledge in a new environment. There are a few points I want to touch on from this week that has help me gain confidence. The first point, I wanted to touch on was being able to chaperone a field trip to the sports medicine symposium. This was fun and exciting for me because I was able to see my class in a different setting other than in the classroom. During, the symposium I had the opportunity to protector practical exams on various sports medicine assessments (i.e. taping, anatomy identification, first aid skills, and orthopedic exam). I was able not only to interact with my students but was also able to interact with students from other programs/schools and educate them on the world of sports medicine. The conferenc...

Week 7 was exciting for many reasons! The first was I completed my second observation and completed my 10 lesson plans. I was able to attend the school’s international fest with my fifth-hour class.  I also was able to sit down with my main cooperating teacher and discuss the upcoming sports medicine symposium we are attending on Thursday this upcoming week. Finally, I am starting to plan out my next student teaching placement. My week first started with the completion of my 10 lessons. Completing this task was somewhat of a relief as I now can move on to the teacher plans. This is a great feeling because gives a source to show my progress throughout student teaching. Additionally, moving on to a teacher plan has given me sufficient time to work on the various projects I am completing during student teaching. On Wednesday, I had my second observation. It was a late start day for us, so I was able to use the time before school started to set up my lesson in the athletic traini...

This week I started the second unit for all of my classes. This is exciting because it allows me to grow as a teacher by allowing me to teach new lessons surrounding new content within the physical education and sports medicine areas. I also had a conversation with my cooperating teachers about my ideal job setting I would like to teach in after graduation. Starting my second unit was exciting and made me reflect on all the points I can build on. First off, I really enjoyed how this new set of units gave me a lot of new ideas for my lessons. I gave my students a  survey in order to gain a better understanding of their likes and dislikes. The survey allowed me to plan lessons for the unit; I really wanted to include their likes in the lessons in order to ensure student involvement and enjoyment. My fifth-hour class began their snorkeling unit in the pool this week. This lesson allowed me to work on my collaboration skills with other teachers within the physical education department....

Week 5 led to many great points for me. This week I feel that I have hit my stride as a student-teacher. I continue to get more and more comfortable when teaching. This week I had my first observation with my college supervisor. Additionally, I was able to create a fun and engaging activity for my students with cooperating teamwork. On Thursday I had my first observation of the year with Mr. Shafer. The day before he arrived I had the opportunity to sit down with my cooperating teacher to discuss what my lesson entailed. Sitting down and having this conversation with my cooperating teacher made me feel comfortable and eased some of my anxiety going into this first observation. On the day of my observation, I was able to use my planning period to gather all of my materials and supplies for the lesson. The lesson I had planned to teach involved gathering hula hoops, cones, jump ropes. The class period before my observation lesson is my planning period, thus this gave me ...