Yesterday, my supervisor came to perform an observation of my lesson, and I would like to just take a moment to reflect on that. (I haven't really reflected on my supervisor's comments in a space like this before.) Stay tuned for my next blog if you are looking for more stories relating my classroom experiences to our seminar's textbook.
I would like to think that all of the lessons I prepare for my students are wonderful and engaging, but being realistic, I made some very specific changes to help ensure that my supervisor would be impressed. My lesson involved leading the students through a peer review exercise and following that up with a lesson on the bystander effect (a continuation of what we were studying last week).
The lesson for the most part went well and I only stumbled once when I was having some technical difficulties with the technology in the classroom. Otherwise, I was complimented on my good use of transitions and classroom management by both my supervisor and my master teacher. The theme of our reflection discussion after the lesson was concluding was dubbed "fine-tuning."
The term "fine-tuning" both encourages and scares me a little bit. It encourages me to know that so far in my young teaching career I have been doing things correctly for the most part. There are just things that I can do to turn good lessons into great ones. However, it scares me a bit because I feel like many of my colleagues are not at this level and I am frightened that I will miss something big that will hinder my ability to teach efficiently. My friends tell me this is an irrational fear, but it is a fear nonetheless.
I remember back in high school when I would perform with our school's wind ensemble and orchestra. Comparatively, we played brilliantly for our ages, and some of the compositions we recorded sounded like a professional orchestration. However, despite how close we appeared to be to perfection, we never accepted that verdict. We enjoyed hearing that we performed well, but we also wanted to know how to improve ourselves. That drive to get even closer to perfection made us that much better.
And so that will be my goal moving forward. It is encouraging that my master teacher and my supervisor have so many wonderful things to say about my teaching, but I will be paying more attention to the feedback that will help me improve and reach new heights in my student teaching.
Best,
Hunter
I would like to think that all of the lessons I prepare for my students are wonderful and engaging, but being realistic, I made some very specific changes to help ensure that my supervisor would be impressed. My lesson involved leading the students through a peer review exercise and following that up with a lesson on the bystander effect (a continuation of what we were studying last week).
The lesson for the most part went well and I only stumbled once when I was having some technical difficulties with the technology in the classroom. Otherwise, I was complimented on my good use of transitions and classroom management by both my supervisor and my master teacher. The theme of our reflection discussion after the lesson was concluding was dubbed "fine-tuning."
The term "fine-tuning" both encourages and scares me a little bit. It encourages me to know that so far in my young teaching career I have been doing things correctly for the most part. There are just things that I can do to turn good lessons into great ones. However, it scares me a bit because I feel like many of my colleagues are not at this level and I am frightened that I will miss something big that will hinder my ability to teach efficiently. My friends tell me this is an irrational fear, but it is a fear nonetheless.
I remember back in high school when I would perform with our school's wind ensemble and orchestra. Comparatively, we played brilliantly for our ages, and some of the compositions we recorded sounded like a professional orchestration. However, despite how close we appeared to be to perfection, we never accepted that verdict. We enjoyed hearing that we performed well, but we also wanted to know how to improve ourselves. That drive to get even closer to perfection made us that much better.
And so that will be my goal moving forward. It is encouraging that my master teacher and my supervisor have so many wonderful things to say about my teaching, but I will be paying more attention to the feedback that will help me improve and reach new heights in my student teaching.
Best,
Hunter