Finally finishing student teaching...

I've been a student teacher for the last 4 months at Taylorsville High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. Now that this semester is coming to a close, I've been thinking a lot about everything I've learned and everyone that I've met...

I really enjoyed my student teaching experience. I knew it was going to be hard and it

was. But I’m so grateful for the experience that I had because now I know that I can

actually do this thing (to some extent) that I’ve chosen to do for the rest of my life.

I feel I was best prepared for this experience by writing all of the millions of lesson plans

in short amounts of time in Julie’s class and creating the curriculum planning guide with

Dr. Turner. Seriously, Dr. Turner’s project I think saved my life this semester. It helped

so much to have the skills fresh in my mind about how to write a scope/sequence and

calendar out a course.

I wish that I had more of the content fresh in my head like financial literacy and child

development theories… Not really sure how that could be fixed, but sometimes it was

really stressful to have to sit there and feel like I had to teach myself the content over

again before I could actually write my lessons.

This semester, I learned that I can do this. Beforehand, I had my doubts about my

abilities to be an effective teacher. Yeah, there are hard days where you feel like you

just can’t anymore, but then there are other days when you see that you really have

made a difference in a students life or one of them says thank you and that makes it all

worth it.

I have a long-term substituting job lined up for the month of May/rest of the school

year. One of the teachers at Granger High School is having a baby so I’m going to take

her classes for her. She teaches Adult Roles and Financial Literacy, Child Development,

and Early Childhood Education. I’m really excited about it! I think It’ll look really great

on my resume that I can just go and pick up where someone left off.

There are 2 main things I would stress for someone preparing to student teach. First is

to now procrastinate lesson planning until you start at the school. Get as much as you

can done before you start. Everything will be much less overwhelming and stressful if

you do. Second, do your best to come up with and make your own activities (research &

development), but don’t be afraid to use someone else’s stuff (rob & duplicate). It can

get to be way to stressful thinking that you have to create everything from scratch.

I'm so grateful for this experience. I have learned and grown so much in the last couple of months. I look forward to landing a teaching position, furthering my skills, and I can't wait to see where life takes me after graduation.