Kyle Krestan

RDG 323 - Professor Trombley

11/24/2020

Guest Speakers Reflection

This class period was extremely helpful for me. I have been stressing about creating

lesson plans, decorating a classroom, etc. for the past semester and it seems like instructors don’t

have the nitty gritty details that I look for. One thing that took a lot of stress away from next

semester is the fact that none of the guests wrote lesson plans out systematically on a regular

basis. In my opinion lesson plans are a good way to ensure standards are being met and the small

details are hit, but it takes a lot of time to gather the resources and write everything out as if a

random teacher was going to use it to teach. Similar to this, the fact that districts provide pacing

guides that structure when standards should be completed in order to get through all the material

was something I have neer heard of before. Finally, it seemed that the guest who is doing a

normal student teaching received a lot of support and materials from her mentor teacher in order

to promote success. I hope to have a teacher that is dedicated to the development of myself and

my peers.

Another aspect that was useful from this discussion was the information about the hiring

processes of differing school districts. According to most of the guests the process of getting

hired turns into an all out sprint once they ask for an interview with steps happening day after

day until suddenly they were in the classroom in front of students. I appreciated the advice that

was given in regards to the interviews such as having individual folders for each of the members

on the board so they don’t have to pass them around or cram over each other to see what is being

referenced. Furthermore, having questions that are school specific such as how do they integrate
their mission statement(say the statement) at the school to show that you have done your

research and are dedicated to the school’s success.

The final aspect of the class worried me because there seemed to be a general consensus

that MLFTC did not prepare them for student teaching or being a teacher in general. I expected

this to an extent but it seems that nearly every class taken that focused on the idea of “in

principle” was useless for all of them. This is definitely demotivating to hear before taking finals

for many of these classes but it does let me emphasize the information in certain ones that did

have daily implications in their opinions.