8th Week: On my own

The 8th week of my student teaching experience culminated in my mentor teacher being gone to a DECA Competition in Colorado Springs. DECA is a business marketing club for high school students. It assesses students for their understanding of marketing concepts and interviews them in their ability to apply these concepts to a real-world scenario. While he was gone, I took over all of the classes. Movies were shown in most of the classes, so there wasn't a lot of teaching. Classroom management was required more than anything.

The problem student that I had at the end of the 7th week decided to drop my Entrepreneurship class. It was so interesting to me that he would rather take a failing grade than try to resolve the issue and move on in the class. He brought the withdraw slip to me to sign, but I required him to get a signature from Mr. Long before he dropped the class completely. The real issue was the work that he was required to do in the class. He wasn't doing the work, and he wasn't asking questions pertinent to the work. He was continually working on other activities instead of getting his work done. When I asked him about it, he became frustrated. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to work with him to get his work done. He was defensive every time I talked to him about his work, and he finally just walked out of class on Tuesday without talking about the issue. When confronted to resolve the issue, he became even more defensive. While this issue had little to do with me, I still wish that I could have been part of a resolution instead of a failed student.

The week ended with an observation from my CSU supervisor. I invited her to observe the 4th Hour MYP Economics class. We were going over Supply and Demand shifts, and in order to practice the concept further, we went through a "baseball" activity that asked a question requiring each team to provide an answer. Any team that had the right answer got a point. The students were discussing the questions thoroughly, and they were having fun thinking critically. Overall, I think that the class went well. Carol Ann had a few suggestions, and the feedback provided me with some good information that I will use in my future classes. For instance, I wasn't intentional when opening and closing the class. This is something that is easy to work on and practice.

While I'm enjoying my student teaching experience (overall), I'm also looking forward to the upcoming break. I'm also looking forward to Spring and some warmer weather.