Student Teaching Reflection

Student Teaching Reflection
During the Spring semester 2022, I completed my student teaching at Madison

Middle School. In that time, I taught 4 sections of 8th grade math, one section of 8th
grade language arts, and lessons in social emotional learning. This was a valuable
experience in which I was able to practice planning lessons, working with students,
managing the classroom and managing my time.
In all of the classes, I realized the importance of careful planning. In math class, I
had to make sure that I had clear examples of all the concepts I was teaching, as well
as knowing how to work those examples correctly. I found that if I just tried to work a
problem on the board during class time, I could easily make small errors. While it may
be good to admit to mistakes and show students that everyone makes mistakes, I
believe that struggling students get more confused if the instructor is not accurate. I
learned that I had to work out all problems that I would use in class ahead of time and
have the answers with me during instruction. This not only helped those students that
get confused easily, but it also helped my confidence in the classroom. I found that
careful planning helped me in the social emotional learning classes I taught as well. If I
showed a video on a topic, I needed to have carefully planned questions or activities so
that the class ran smoothly. Finally, using backwards design really helped me with
planning. It gave me a roadmap in knowing what I wanted students to master before I
even started planning my first lesson. It was good practice for me to go through
planning a unit using backwards design. I realized this because I did not use it for
language arts grammar lessons, which made it much harder to plan where I was going
and what I expected students to master. Now that I have had experiences both ways, I
will do my best to use backwards design.
While planning for all of the classes I taught, I also learned that it was important to
use multiple sources. For example, the students’ math book did not have enough
practice problems for students to master a concept. In addition, the language arts
textbook did not give the best explanations of grammar rules. The sources that the
cooperating teacher offered as well as ones that I found, helped to make lessons more
complete and interesting. This is something I will carry with me into my own classroom. I
will always use multiple sources to teach concepts to students. It is not only more
interesting and more complete but will also help students with different learning styles.
After all of the careful planning, I found working with the students was very rewarding
and my favorite part of the experience. At first, I was a little intimidated because I was
working with so many different students. Some classes were a little smaller which made
it easier to get to know them, while others were quite large and made it harder to get to
know individual students. While I sometimes wish I would have had more time to get to
know the students before having to teach them, I realized that in a teaching position I
would have to start teaching students before I really knew them. It was good for me to
have larger and smaller classes. The larger classes showed me the importance for
clear expectations while the smaller classes showed me how to get students involved in
discussions. I worked with students of varying abilities which was challenging as well. I
have a lot of experience in helping students that are struggling but not with students that
catch on quickly. I will have to focus my attention in this area in the future to make sure
all students are getting what they need. This middle school experience gave me
practice in working with all kinds of students.
Because I worked with small and large classes, I learned some lessons in classroom
management. While I found it easier to manage behavior in a smaller class, it was
sometimes harder to engage the students. I had to learn things that I needed to do to
get them talking. I felt that I had more participation when the smaller classes formed
small groups and worked together on problems. On the other hand, the larger classes
would lose focus and there would be frequent disruptions if the class was not moving
along quickly. I had to be flexible in my planning and had to make adjustments in
running the different classes. I did enjoy the discussions we would have in the larger
classes because there were many eager participants.
In addition to managing classes, I had to work on managing my own time away from
school. Sometimes I could spend many hours trying to plan the perfect lesson. Using
resources from the internet or my cooperating teacher rather than coming up with my
own materials was key. I learned how to make small changes to existing resources if I
needed to, which saved me a lot of time. Working with the cooperating teacher also
helped me with planning. I learned the value of getting to know my coworkers and
having a good relationship with them. Sharing ideas with other teachers always made
my own lessons better.
All in all, I would say my experience in middle school was rewarding, and I learned a
lot. There were lessons that went very well, and I know that the students learned what I
wanted them to know. That was of course a good feeling. Then there were lessons that
did not go as well as I had planned, and I had to go back and reflect on how to move
forward. No matter how I felt, I had to come in prepared for the next day. Again, I had
to be flexible and know that all the planning in the world would not mean that classes
would always go smoothly. In conclusion, I feel prepared to move to the next step of my
journey.

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Student Teaching Reflection

During the Spring semester 2022, I completed my student teaching at Madison

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