Overall the year was an interesting and fun experience for me. The school year reinforced why I wanted to be an educator (connecting with students and showcasing how social studies is an interesting subject) and helped with some of the concerns I have about being an educator (being able to speak in front of teen students and manage a classroom). I had a great and supportive UNM Advisor (Dr. Francis Vitali), an awesome CT (Nick Huston) and a great PLC social studies team that made me feel part of team from the very start. And more importantly, I had great students that accepted me as an educator, respected my authority, and still drove me nuts from time to time (as they should); and I loved it.
My time as a student-teacher was invaluable, it taught me more for me than all the class courses I took before. It was one thing to read, write, and do small presentations, and it’s a whole other monster to do it with real students after your novelty wears off for them after week one. The nerve’s disappeared, their faces and names become more fluid in my mind, and hardship on being a teacher seeps in. I joyed my time as a “pretend” teacher working in someone else’s classroom with someone’s else’s students for me to borrow. I’m itching to have my class, my students, and earn money.
I know that my PDP will be on going part of my career till the day I wish to leave this field, and that the domains I have worked on are only a fraction of the whole. As a start I chose to concentrate on designing student assessments, creating an environment of respect and rapport, and flexibility and responsiveness because I knew that I knew I needed to find a way that encourages students to turn-in work, I needed my classroom to be a safe area of learning and expression, and I know my style of teaching is unpredictable already without my students so I knew learning to be flexible with my lesson plan and being responsive to my student’s needs, whenever they arise, is a must.
Due to the unexpected pandemic, these domain goals were tested while the school moved into an online environment. Luckily, making mistakes in the classroom allowed me to modify what I learned from them and helped me while I created a digital classroom. I had to be flexible day by day and week by week as we get more information from the Administration. I also had to adapt in response to my student’s needs. I redesign my lesson plan and assessments design to completement my student’s needs. I’ve had some success and some failures, and I hope to continue modifying to maximize me student’s needs and my needs.