I am not overly content with how my miniature unit went, although, I am also not entirely displeased with how it went. I feel like I took a lot away from this experience as it was my first time teaching entirely by myself. I am used to co-teaching and have become extremely comfortable being able to rely on my peers or mentor to pick up my slack during our co-taught lessons. I never truly experienced nerves to this extent either which was something I was struggling with pretty intensely.
My mentor teacher provided me with plenty of encouragement and advice that allowed me to keep my spirits up when I wasn't confident in myself. She also really helped me find ways to adapt and didn't offer said advice or answers until I explicitly asked her and had already planned my entire unit which is something that I felt was immensely considerate of her. She allowed me to get the experience of lesson planning and building a unit, I was able to crash and burn, and when a lesson went bad she calmed me down. However, she never took away my autonomy on how the unit/lessons went, I chose everything unless it went extremely poorly. An example of this is during my mini-lesson on theme, during the first period it went horribly and I was extremely self-conscious about how it went. I was sure the students thought I was an idiot and expressed how poorly I felt the lesson went.
My mentor consoled me up until I asked for advice on adjustments for the next hour and she assisted me instantly. I taught the second period using the advice and strategies that she had given me and it went so much more smoothly, students participated with me, and it seemed like when the lesson there was little to no confusion from the students.
I have plenty to improve upon and this miniature unit exposed a lot of weaknesses I was not aware of. Yet, I feel even more confident going into student teaching with these weaknesses being exposed and now something I can actively work on throughout the entire next semester.