Teaching Experience

Over the course of teaching third grade, I was able to see myself blossom in terms of classroom confidence. On the first day, I was terrified. While my knowledge was sound, I felt that I was inexperienced at cutting down on information for the sake of time and that I was failing the students by not giving them every detail. However, as the lessons continued, I was able to better adapt to the interests of my students, pulling from their own experiences and previous knowledge to inform what new knowledge I provided. This also helped me better follow the Awareness to Action  pipeline, providing them with the skills and understanding on how to be better environmental stewards and then seeing how they took interest in applying these to their lives outside of school. It was especially rewarding to see how their interest in exploring the world around them came to fruition on the field trip to Mt. Pisgah. While they were learning from me, I was also learning from them. I feel like my Spanish vocabulary beyond the scientific terms included in lessons improved from start to finish and I was able to communicate with students better one on one. It was important to have them to have experiences in both languages both for the sake of their retention and to better understand the cross-cultural connections the program is encouraging. Many of them wrote on their posters and during sit spots with the Spanish vocabulary we had been discussing in class, even if their comfortability with the language was still developing. As I continue to grow as an educator, I feel more confident knowing that I was able to also help these students feel more confident as well.