Reflections on Q1 of student teaching

[This was a "learning log" from my first student teaching; "TJ" = my cooperating teacher.]

As my classes draw to a close, I feel that I've learned a lot, mostly about how much I have to learn. I'm not entirely pleased with how everything went, but I have some ideas for next quarter that I hope will help make things go better.

1) Plan ahead! - and stick to the plan

Of course, many problems can be avoided by having a more complete plan for how the class will go.

For example, thinking through every question ahead of time can help me come up with better questions, ones that don't have "right/wrong" answers, and that don't invite students into territory that they might not be equipped to navigate.

Having good plans also will free me to be more "present" in the class, listening to students with empathy and awareness instead of having half a mind consumed with what I'm going to do next and how to do it. This is a really huge important point--I think everyone will get more out of the class if I can be less worried and more "present" while interacting with students.

Looking back, I feel that both classes would have gone better if I had stuck to the plan I laid out before they started. Instead, I second-guessed myself the moment anything didn't go exactly as planned, and tossed out what I had planned--over and over. So I was always "winging it." Even when I'd write out a plan for the next three days, I'd end up changing it after the first day.

This leaves me looking back with a lot of loose ends--a lot of topics where I told students, "We'll come back to that later," or where I thought to myself, "It's ok if they don't get that completely, we'll touch on it again when we do x," but we never did... so there are a lot of things they have half-formed ideas about.

Meanwhile, my original plan was good!

Looking back, there were actually very good reasons for doing what I had planned to do. Some of the things that went wrong (especially in the Power class) might have been ameliorated if I had stuck to the plan... (of course, many things would still have gone wrong because this is my first time, but....)

So instead of panicking, next time, I will try to stick to the plan and just see what happens--not mindlessly so, but within reason. It's not going to go perfectly anyway. I will look at it as a series of experiments. When things start to go wrong, instead of getting lost in fear of making a mistake and an attempt to save myself from the mistake, I will just follow the lesson plan and observe what happens. At the very least, I'll wind up with a more coherent series of mistakes!

2) Talk less

No more than three sentences in a row!

This is simpler than goal #1--but "talking less" requires goal #1 to be implemented!

Final projects in both classes have shown me that everything I just "told" students seems to have gone in one ear and out the other. I might as well have been speaking German.

There are several reasons for this--one, many people have trouble taking in information when it's only heard; two, when I am not "present" and "aware," and when I have not planned adequately what I will say, I tend to ramble and babble; three, I literally "speak a different language" from the language common among the students--i.e. I think and speak in academic terms, with big words and abstract concepts all over the place.

Communication is a serious issue for me--issuing directions is a huge challenge. I had to abandon a final project in one of the classes because I was literally unable to convey to the students what I wanted them to do!

And, lecturing is a skill that takes time to develop, and I don't have it yet. Lecturing off-the-cuff is practically impossible and there's no reason to try to do it when I can (a) plan ahead and (b) plan lessons that don't involve lecturing.

So that's the goal. Plan lessons that revolve around students' taking in information in other ways, and performing other activities besides just listening or responding to material that is given to them. This will make for more interesting classes, and will challenge me to be creative and really think through what I'm doing.

3) Let go

Don't try to make everything perfect all the time--don't try to make everything turn out the way I expect or want.

This is manipulative and a mis-direction of energy--it results in lots of fear and panic, "oh no!!! it's not happening just the way I want it to! What now??? Must fix!!!" This kind of insanity is what results in the problems discussed in #1. It also makes me talk too much, as in #2.

I was reading a book that talked about babies learning to walk. Each time they try they fall down, and it looks like a complete failure. But they just try again and somehow, through a process that they certainly aren't thinking about in any analytical terms, they just get better at it and learn how to do it.

If I can look at it like that, hopefully it will be calmer and a better learning environment for me and for the students too. Just try things, and observe the results. It's never going to be perfect--it might not even be good, since this is my first time. The best I can do is try things and observe with full attention and awareness. If I'm not panicking, I have more energy to listen to the students attentively and thoughtfully; if I'm not trying to control them all the time, I have a better chance of communicating and teaching. The best I can do is give students that kind of respect and acceptance, and myself too.

4) Spend time considering specifically how to develop students' thinking skills.

This was the biggest shock and disappointment to me in the "Power" class, where they just didn't seem to have the intellectual tools to compare one theory to another, or to analyze a problem and reach a conclusion in an orderly fashion. When we came to the final projects, it seemed like they just didn't understand a single thing that I had taught them all semester.

I can think of a lot of reasons for this, including the mistakes in #1, but one is that I didn't do anything to help them develop habits of rigorous inquiry and thought. I picked up a great book last week called "Teaching Thinking;" I'm loving it and hope I can apply some of its ideas this quarter. I remember the class that taught me these kinds of skills as one of the most important in my life. Maybe I can start to learn how to make that kind of difference to students.