The spring semester started in late January, on time and on schedule except without me… I had to drop three out of five of my COE classes because of conflicts with my work – Was I disappointed? Very… but I am confident that it is the right thing to do for my work, for myself, and for my family. Well at least I was able to continue with two classes: my Beginning Student teaching and also the BCLAD class. One is behind me now (or almost) and the BCLAD class is on Saturday’s so I have no conflicts.
The Beginning student teaching was a blast! It started with a challenge in logistics, and the school bureaucracy but it smoothed out to a great teaching experience. Teaching 31 10th graders European History all in Spanish proved to be a challenge… I had to prepare the lessons from scratch – no textbook…don’t ask why.
I integrated key pedagogical strategies to engage the students achieving for the most part good outcomes. I introduced power-point lectures (never used in the classroom); we did word wall exercises, cartoon analysis, group presentations, etc. The class was supposedly the worst class in the teacher’s roster. Only 3-4 students were passing the class. I am not sure if in the four weeks I taught were sufficient to turn around the kids, but at least in the unit I taught (WWI) 14 students passed… the disappointment was in the fact that still I had 16 kids that did not do well… I was asked if I thought they could make it eventually - the answer is YES! I truly believe that these students could succeed.
The classroom experience gave me a lot to think about – but of all the things to think about, it certainly confirmed that I liked to teach and seemed able to connect with the students…
Here is an example of a mindmap about history – we used this at the beginning of the class…
I will use the expression I heard in school, it reflects how I feel about this teaching experience: “I am stoked!”
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