Ashley Gesler

11 February 2019

Reflection

Week 5

Another week down! This past week was amazing. I can really feel the classroom dynamic

shift since I have taken over and found my self confidence. This is the first week of me teaching

the entire day. I have taken over everything except small groups for math and reading. The

students listen much more now that they see me teaching all day and not just a subject here

and there. One thing that has been a struggle is following the lesson plans that all of the grade

level does. They seem to be very dry and have little engagement. At the beginning of the week I

would follow it word for word but I could see that I was losing many students due to lack of

engagement. I spoke with my mentor and asked if I could use those as more of a guideline and

she said that would be fine. Throughout the week I started incorporating more engagement and

the students really loved it. For phonics we started reviewing our prefixes by playing a “game”.

The students were SO excited and one mentioned that they didn’t realize they could learn by

playing games. That comment really made me light up because I could see their excitement. I

was able to also give a summative test for prefixes and they all scored very well! It felt like a

great accomplishment seeing their scores after changing the lesson plans up a little!

After the week ended I was excited to start planning upcoming lessons. We start time as

our next unit in math and I have used as many resources as possible to make sure that it’s not a

dry unit. I have found ways that I can make it fun and really stick with students. My mentor said

that time is something many students struggle with and I am hoping I can tackle this standard

and have my students be successful in their learning.

 Overall, this week was another wonderful week. I feel like my mentor and I have become a

team and it’s really working well for us. I have learned some valuable things and the more time I

spend in this journey the more I am learning. I am excited to see what the next 10 weeks have

in store and can’t wait to continue growing into the teacher I’ve always wanted to be.

Diane’s Thoughts
This is awesome!!!! I love “hearing” your confidence grow and seeing the difference you’re

making. I’m so proud of you!