My first full week is done!
I am really enjoying it. My confidence is just really soaring this prac, and I'm feeling really comfortable both in my planning and teaching. I have gotten awesome feedback from my teacher, but she also challenges me, which I really appreciate. I'm enjoying the kids, it's a great class with a good sense of humour so you can have a bit of a joke with them and make school a bit more fun.
I have my week organised for next week... quite a few lessons but most of them I am teaching in both year 7 classes, which means that although I'm taking 14 or so lessons, I only have to do up 7 lesson plans. It's really valuable experience being able to teach a lesson twice as a prac teacher.
I have to do two religion lessons next week... will have to study up on Catholic theology so I don't lead them astray ;-) What does transfiguration mean again???
Friday, September 5, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
teaching teaching
I got to do three lessons today! It was good. I'm gaining a lot more confidence as I get to know the kids better, and I got really great feedback for all of my lessons.
Today I am a third of a way through my prac: 5 days down, 10 to go. It is going quickly, and I'm enjoying it more as the days go on.
Tomorrow I'm taking the entire day! I only have to teach 2 actual lessons, and other than that I'm just facilitating work that they are working on (assignments and such). It should be good. I haven't actually done that on any prac before, so it will be good experience.
To answer questions in my comments: Mass was pretty good. I liked the priest's message, and the kids were all really involved reading prayers etc. We all got to sit up on the alter instead of in the church. St Patrick's Cathedral is humongous, but a very beautiful church. The Priest said he preferred for the class to be up close rather than back, because the Mass service is intended to be intimate and is more meaningful that way instead of people sitting way back from the altar in uncomfortable pews! I thought that was a pretty good way of looking at it. They did do communion, but I opted not to take it as I didn't want to offend anyone. I got a blessing instead. It was quite a lovely service actually...
Anyway, I'm off - we have antenatal class tonight, touring the birthing centre!!!!!
Today I am a third of a way through my prac: 5 days down, 10 to go. It is going quickly, and I'm enjoying it more as the days go on.
Tomorrow I'm taking the entire day! I only have to teach 2 actual lessons, and other than that I'm just facilitating work that they are working on (assignments and such). It should be good. I haven't actually done that on any prac before, so it will be good experience.
To answer questions in my comments: Mass was pretty good. I liked the priest's message, and the kids were all really involved reading prayers etc. We all got to sit up on the alter instead of in the church. St Patrick's Cathedral is humongous, but a very beautiful church. The Priest said he preferred for the class to be up close rather than back, because the Mass service is intended to be intimate and is more meaningful that way instead of people sitting way back from the altar in uncomfortable pews! I thought that was a pretty good way of looking at it. They did do communion, but I opted not to take it as I didn't want to offend anyone. I got a blessing instead. It was quite a lovely service actually...
Anyway, I'm off - we have antenatal class tonight, touring the birthing centre!!!!!
Monday, September 1, 2008
First lessons...
So today I had my first lessons. I did the same maths lesson for both classes.
I feel that I did pretty well, but I can see some areas where I could have done things differently.
I felt a bit nervous, so I think that was probably not helping - always like that in your first lesson. My intro's were okay- not as strong as they usually are. I didn't use questioning as much as I usually would. If anything, I usually over question but it totally slipped out of my mind to do this to check for understanding. I won't do it again, as both teachers commented on it, and as soon as I finished my lessons I realised that I hadn't done it. Other than that though, the lessons went really well and I got great feedback.
So apart from those lessons, I mostly did TA type work today: marking, photocopying etc. I seriously have doubted the whole 'pregnancy brain' thing before, but not anymore! You have no idea, it's so bizarre, I am totally conscious of my brain processing things so much more slowly than it usually would. You should have seen how long it took me to figure out how to photocopy the order of service for Mass into a booklet form... seriously! And I've been marking the maths book of a girl who has an Intellectual Impairment, so is only doing year 3 work. You would think I could add together 2 digit numbers to be able to mark them? Far out! I resisted the urge to find a calculator but it was a slow process.
Yes, so we have Mass tomorrow, should be interesting. Kind of throws our day a bit out of whack, plus the class has music, LOTE & PE, which means we have a lot of non-contact (or as they call it 'release') time. So should be a pretty cruisy day tomorrow. Suits me!
I'm starting to settle in a lot more now.. getting to know the kid's names (which really helps!) and I'm enjoying myself.
Fingers crossed it continues that way!
Zoey
I feel that I did pretty well, but I can see some areas where I could have done things differently.
I felt a bit nervous, so I think that was probably not helping - always like that in your first lesson. My intro's were okay- not as strong as they usually are. I didn't use questioning as much as I usually would. If anything, I usually over question but it totally slipped out of my mind to do this to check for understanding. I won't do it again, as both teachers commented on it, and as soon as I finished my lessons I realised that I hadn't done it. Other than that though, the lessons went really well and I got great feedback.
So apart from those lessons, I mostly did TA type work today: marking, photocopying etc. I seriously have doubted the whole 'pregnancy brain' thing before, but not anymore! You have no idea, it's so bizarre, I am totally conscious of my brain processing things so much more slowly than it usually would. You should have seen how long it took me to figure out how to photocopy the order of service for Mass into a booklet form... seriously! And I've been marking the maths book of a girl who has an Intellectual Impairment, so is only doing year 3 work. You would think I could add together 2 digit numbers to be able to mark them? Far out! I resisted the urge to find a calculator but it was a slow process.
Yes, so we have Mass tomorrow, should be interesting. Kind of throws our day a bit out of whack, plus the class has music, LOTE & PE, which means we have a lot of non-contact (or as they call it 'release') time. So should be a pretty cruisy day tomorrow. Suits me!
I'm starting to settle in a lot more now.. getting to know the kid's names (which really helps!) and I'm enjoying myself.
Fingers crossed it continues that way!
Zoey
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