The Experience

My student-teaching experience came during the 2022-23 school year. I entered the school year very nervous, but excited. My father was a teacher and at the time, I was set on becoming the best high school biology teacher I could be. Every biology/science and education course I took, I consciously told myself that it was shaping me to do just that. It was my fifth year of undergraduate studies since Grand Valley's Education program was a five-year program at the time. I was excited to be teaching and I was just as excited to finish up with school (if you've seen my other pages prior, you'd see the comedic irony in that).

My placement was Union High School in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. Union High School, within the GRPS (Grand Rapids Public Schools) district, is a unique and special place. With a student body of around 1,000 students with ~93% minority enrollment, it was a stark contrast from my rural, small, predominantly white high school in northwest Ohio. It was a great learning experience for a multitude of reasons. The student population caused me to interact with a plethora of diverse backgrounds and experiences whether it was first-generation students from countries in Africa or observing the MoCi room that gave me my first experiences of working with students with disabilities. The school had a large number of ESL (English Second Language) students too, as the families of the students spoke 25+ languages. It was an intriguing surprise to hear the front office come over the PA system asking for a translator during parent-teacher conferences. My year at UHS most definitely contributed to my educator toolbox from the start as I was interacting and serving such a diverse, unique pool of students. And most days -- I loved it.

One of the biggest blessings of this experience was being hosted by a phenomenal mentor and high school biology teacher himself - Bill Smith. If I had the time of day or space on this page to do so, I would go on forever about how impactful his guidance and mentorship was during this time, but even just as much to this very day. Mr. Smith always gave me straight forward critical feedback of which I am very appreciative. The feedback he gave came often, whether it be between class periods or during our planning period. He always "gave it to me straight" when there was need for constructive criticism, but was the first to also applaud the things I was doing well. He made me think about many unforeseen things about teaching I never would have considered that helped me grow as an educator. Things such as classroom management (never have I seen someone manage stressful student interactions better), lesson planning, and simply put -- how can we get students to learn to the best of their abilities with the resources available. He was the first to really show me what it meant to truly meet students where they're at and get an admirable finished product from there. He taught me a multitude of lessons from day one in that classroom regarding how to best get students to learn and efficient and effective ways to manuever education as a professional. There are so many tools Mr. Smith himself added to my toolbox that I consciously and regularly used in my roles in DSR, but especially working with students athletes to this day. The variety of skills he developed in me I will forever use on a daily basis. I cannot adequately express how much he developed me as an educator and how often I use his "teaching" tools on a daily basis. I am incredibly fortunate and appreciative to have had him as a host teacher, but also as a good friend and mentor to this day. (And he brews some darn tasty adult beverages on his own!)

The other person in this school who is a great individual and professional is Principal Aaron Roussey. The way Principal Roussey conducts himself and interacts with others is something I admire and respect. He comes across as stern and a "no-funny-business" indvidual, but is super laid back and personable. All of my interactions with him were great and for being "just" a student teacher. I really appreciated how he interacted with me on a daily basis. He was also the first to offer me a "big boy" job. The decision to turn the offer down so I could stay in school for my ("free", paid for by my graduate assistantship) Masters was the hardest one I have ever had to make to that point in time. He and his other administrative professionals have put together a great staff at Union High School, I loved the student body he had, and I was very thankful for the opportunities he gave me that year.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/michigan/districts/grand-rapids-public-schools/union-high-school-9980

Lesson Planning

For me, lesson planning was the least enjoyable and hardest part of my year of student-teaching. I'm sure many teachers agree with me. While I'm sure this is in-part because it was new to me, there were also a multitude of things I never would have considered had I not thought in-depth about lessons and how to get students to think critically as Mr. Smith taught me. Some of the biggest takeaways I had from student-teaching and learning from Mr. Smith were to:

1. Create lessons and plan your teaching to meet students where they are in their current knowledge on a topic/subject.

2. Think about ways to convey topics and processes in various forms so students can see these topics and processes in various forms. (i.e. photo and videos, events or phenomena that resonate them and relate to the unit/topic, etc.)

3. Be ready to adjust your lesson plans as you teach them.

These three things, to me in my journey now, are imperative to planning for an entire unit, all the way down to the weeks and days of the lessons themselves.

All lesson plans must have a few things: learning objectives, adequate/abundance of resources, activities that make the student critically think and make connections to other concepts in the unit and year, and assessments that explicitly measure the learning of the student. Broadly, the lesson planning (in my opinion) must be scaffolded. If all of these things seem very Constructivist, it's because it is. 

Learning objectives are the foundation of any lesson plan and most times align with state standards and the discretion of the teacher as to what else the students should learn in a unit. The learning objectives can be fluid throughout a unit and you may accumulate more than one as the unit progresses. If the students' understanding is constantly progressing and growing, perhaps the learning objectives should do so as well in complexity. Again, adjust the lessons/unit to fit your students. Lessons should be student-centered. Learning objectives provide a clear roadmap of what students should have learned by the end of the unit or lesson.  

To start any unit, I would present a phenomena that would illustrate the concepts and topics the unit would be on (unbeknownst to the students). The phenomena was always something that seemingly would be pretty interesting to a bunch of 13-14 year olds (ecospheres, identical twins where one is white and one is black, etc.). This is often referred to or viewed as the "hook" of the unit. It engages students and sparks their curiosity. The first few days were always pretty fun for me to see them puzzled about whatever the presented phenomena was.

We would work to create a list of questions that should they be answered, would explain the phenomena. As the unit went on, the questions would be answered, refined, and/or eliminated -- all by the students as learning occurred and their understanding and knowledge grew. The goal was for students to really ponder what questions they could ask that biologically explain the phenomena in detail. The learning objectives would be in pursuit during this whole process. It was my job to guide their learning and thought processes to reach the learning objectives, but was the students' responsibility to think critically about biology to answer their own questions and ultimately explain the phenomena. 

As noted, scaffolding is huge in any facet of education where you are working with students. Throughout my lesson planning, the learning objectives (and admittedly, state standards) were my "guiding star" per se. Using students' past knowledge from previous classes as a starting point is imperative. My role as a teacher required me to provide the guidance, support, and structure to reach these objectives. Though I am in the minority and believe lecturing is necessary at times, it certainly isn't at the top of my list when it comes to ways to getting students learning and engaged. Scaffolding and lesson planning for me was often intentional through facilitating group discussions, conducting experiments (as our carpetted biology classroom would allow), and designing/finding activities that challenge students to think deeply about the concept being studied. 

Assessment

Proper assessment is vital to a biology classroom and your journey through a unit. It provides candid snapshots of where your students are at in the learning process, provides feedback as to how effective an instructional process is, and where to adjust your lesson plans moving forward.

Formative assessments occur regularly in any classroom. For me, this could be as simple as choosing random students in class to answer a question or a "check for understanding"/"exit ticket" that students must complete prior to leaving for class. These formative assessments are short and to the point and as I said, provides data and information as to where the students' understanding is at that point in time. For me at least, my times it isn't graded. For check for understandings and exit tickets, I would often seek out the students who provided an incorrect answer to get a perspective of their thought process they followed to answer the question. We'd discuss why an answer was wrong and then discuss why the correct answer is, well, correct. These assessments tell me that either the students' learning and understanding is on pace and we can keep moving forward or it will show me that we need to revist some topics more in depth. 

Summative assessments were a bit trickier and would only occur once or twice within a unit. These are often quizzes and tests and are always graded.

Classroom Management