Week 2 reflection (Sept 6th to Sept 10th)

This week we really started to get into the swing of things. I felt like I had covered a lot of

material and so on the Tuesday I gave my students a period to catch up - I had spend the vast

majority of the Thursday and Friday classes teaching material and so I felt that my students may

have been slightly overwhelmed. There were pros and cons to this work period: I felt like some

students used the time wisely to ask questions and practice the concepts, but other students did

not use their time as wisely. After discussing with Phil, I tried a bit of a different strategy on

Wednesday. I covered less material, but this left time at the end for students to ask questions. It

gave me a bit of a break from talking and still gave the students something to do after the lesson

was finished. I thought that this struck a good balance in the pacing of the class as well.

Thursday, we started some new material while also reviewing the previous classes material,

further engaging in this sort of 2 steps forward, 1 step back strategy. Despite how much material

we covered in such a short period of time, the students did really well on the quiz I gave them on

Friday. Given that there were 80 of them, it took quite a long time to mark of their quizzes - but I

actually enjoyed it! It was great to see where students were at and what to expect from them

going forward. It was also nice to see the students who clearly put a lot of effort into studying get

rewarded.

One of the biggest differences I have noticed between teaching high school kids vs. any other

grade level is the amount of banter you are able to have with them. I have been a part of and

witnessed some pretty comical back and forth between students and teachers, which isn’t

something you see very often in the elementary and jr. high levels. There is also a much greater
emphasis on personal responsibility in high school and less hand holding, which is reasonable to

expect since the kids are older.

I also took some time to think about what Phil told me about making my notes more intentional.

What he meant by this was that sometimes things in my notes can seem either scattered or

redundant. When things are redundant in your notes, you run the danger of having your students

tune them out (which is obviously the opposite of the point of notes). He also told me that

incorporating drawings is a really good idea, but its important to ensure that these drawings are

intentional and easy to follow along so that the students don’t get lost.

Lastly, I want to say that I love coming to school every day. All of my kids are phenomenal in

their own unique way, and I feel like all the other staff are there to support me in my journey to

become a teacher. I feel like I’ve learned so much in such a short time and I’m super excited to

get the kids into a lab activity this week!