#psuaged16 is halfway finished!

The weeks feel shorter and shorter as the student teaching experience passes by. Every week I feel like I can't believe how far into this experience I am! Week 8 has passed and there were ups and downs just like any other week.

Not directly related to teaching, my highlight of this week was the opening night of Legally Blonde Jr. The Musical at the high school. It was an amazing event put on by the students. It was highlight for many reasons:

This poster for the musical can be seen throughout the school

• I love legally blonde, who doesn't?
• A student I have in class had a substantial role - it was so interesting seeing him in a different role other than seeing him in the classroom. In the classroom he is a very outgoing, intelligent student. He played the very serious and intimidating lawyer so it was very different than the student I have seen.
• It was heart-warming to see so many other students go to support classmates. I ran into a handful of students I have in class that either came to watch or helped throughout the semester with sets and other tasks. Wellsboro really supports the arts and I loved being a part of it for the night!

As I reflect on what I can do to make the next week (and future weeks) spectacular, there are a few things I would change to further improve in the classroom...

Things to improve on

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I really want to work on organization. From day-to-day I tend to get lost in papers to grade, worksheets to hand out, and lesson plans that should be filed neatly in binders. I really want to start spending a part of my afternoon filing away paperwork in an organized manner to keep track of things. This would mean putting my lesson plans in the appropriate binders, having a set pile of worksheets for students that are absent, and a folder or binder of the paperwork I need to go through at night. Although I file every week - it's not enough to put those papers away once a week (especially now that I have all but one class that I'm teaching).

Along with organization, I want to get ahead with planning a little more so I can be best prepared for lessons. I'm not as far ahead in planning as I would like to be and I hate feeling like I'm not doing my best for the students because I ran out of time to pick up materials. I'm getting better at planning ahead, but there is plenty of room for improvement in that area!

Positives

I feel pretty confident in my teaching abilities - more so than I have in previous weeks. I don't get nervous presenting a lesson in front of students or get thrown off by certain behaviors. I think as time has passed I have developed many of my teaching skills and I find that I don't need to spend as much time practicing how the lesson will go. I still plan it out so I know what questions I will want to ask or what activities - it's just that it comes more naturally in the classroom than it had in previous weeks. My highlight for teaching this week was judging donut holes. Mrs. Berndtson told me that she sometimes does that with students to get them used to the judging process so I gave it a try. I felt like students really enjoyed it and it gave them the background they needed to get ready judging classes of market animals. They put their note-taking and reasons to the test!