Exceeding Expectations

Alright folks, let's get right down to it. The first blog post. Or I should say, the first "real" blog post.

As I am now in my Core III (Pre-Student Teaching) I am nearing towards having a classroom of students under my tutelage at an alarming rate. The times I have spent in Freddie Mercury Middle School for my Core I and Jim Morrison High School for my Core II were both good, but overall inferior (so far) to my experience at Neil Peart High School. The students are very bright and my CT is professional and kind. I have set some goals for myself this semester in order to grow as an educator.

1. Learn every student's name / learn effective methods for this

This may seem very trivial but learning names is critical to being able to establish a connection with a student. In my Core I and Core II I was only able to truly learn the names of a few students as I spent more time observing than doing that much. My CT has a seating chart with every student's name and face so that is very helpful - next time I get a chance I want to ask if she did anything special to learn their names or if it just comes with time.

2. Establish rapport with students

This was probably by biggest concern but oddly enough I was pleased to find this went off without a hitch. I found some common ground with some of the students over a certain video game - there is actually a club at the school for this game. Indeed, the day after I introduced myself (and announced I played the aforementioned game) I found myself engaged in conversation by the students about it. Obviously my end goal is not to chit-chat about games all day with students but I feel this made me seem much more approachable - a real fellow human being with a life and hobbies beyond the classroom and academia.

3. Show connections between classroom content and daily life to illustrate importance

This is one of my core philosophies of teaching. I was pleased to find that my CT does a good job of this. For example, she had an amusing "good vs. bad" examples ("Goofus & Gallant", anyone?) of various documents - résumés, job applications, stuff like that. It helps to show them that the skills they learn in class really are applied in the "real world." I would like to take it a step further make it even more approachable and relatable - it's what my favorite high school teacher did and my classmates and I ate it up. (For instance instead of résumés I could showcase instead friend requests on Facebook, one with impeccable grammar and one with atrocious conventions - or, keeping in a similar vein, messages from other players in an online game who want to team up.)

4. Projection / "Teacher Voice"

Pretty self-explanatory. I always think I'm being loud, but according to feedback from others - and yes, admittedly from reviewing my own videos of myself teaching lessons - I'm really not. I feel like I am yelling when I am told to be louder when I am "already being loud." That is something I need to get used to. I anticipate this to be a fairly small hurdle though, since my CT seems very on-board to have me participating as much as possible.

My expectations for this year aren't anything fancy or lofty but I think they are realistic and important. I hope that later on this semester I'll look back on this first blog post and realize that I exceeded my own expectations.