Ive Got Other Things to Do on the Other Side of Campus Take Art Class
This week, I got an email from someone who is just nearly to start educatee teaching. Feeling anxious near the semester alee, she asked if I had any advice.
I'thou going to share my own thoughts here, only I would like it if this could be 1 of my crowdsourcing posts, where we pull together all the commonage wisdom of my incredibly smart, insightful readers (like the times you advised parents on skipping kindergarten and having your child take actress math courses). And then after I share my ideas, I would love for anybody else to use the comments below to give all start teachers advice on how to make the most of the pupil teaching experience.
Okay. I'll go first:
1. Inquire All the Questions
Unless you lot're very extroverted, y'all might concur dorsum on request questions. Possibly you don't desire to bother anyone or you don't want to look stupid.
Endeavour really hard to go over that. You need to be asking lots of questions this term: Questions about classroom procedures, grading, and technology. Questions about how your host teachers handle catchy situations, how they manage to steal bathroom breaks, and how they decide whether an 89% is an A or a B. If you lot don't inquire, you're not going to learn.
If y'all feel like you lot're taking up a lot of your host teacher's fourth dimension, keep a list of questions equally you think of them, so ask several at once. Or ask different people different questions, so you lot're not "bothering" the same people all the fourth dimension. Seriously, though, it'southward really not a bother. Most experienced professionals love sharing their expertise, so ask away.
2. Get a Buddy
When I did my student teaching at Penn State, my friend Dan had as well been assigned to the same school. Everyone in my program had been placed in schools all over Pennsylvania, then we were pretty isolated, and it was a huge approving to have Dan around. We didn't have much chance to talk during the school day, just almost once a calendar week we would have dinner and talk near things that were going well and things that weren't. Nosotros asked each other the stupid questions we were afraid to ask anyone else. And we gossiped like crazy. Information technology was a bang-up stress reliever, and it really helped to accept another "outsider" to talk to.
If you don't take some other student teacher in your edifice to share the experience with, discover someone else in your program and gear up some kind of regular check-in. If that's not an choice, look around online for a community. Find someone who gets you, someone who has a like amount of pressure on them, and schedule time to hang out. You'll be glad you did.
iii. Find Like Crazy
The best way to learn what good didactics looks similar, and what not-so-adept teaching looks similar, is to discover LOTS of teachers. Chances are your plan is going to require you to practice a certain number of these; my advice is to triple that number. Use your planning period to sit down in the back of someone else'southward classroom; course papers if yous need to multitask. You'll nevertheless selection up enough of instructional techniques and tweaks, bits of presentation flair, and classroom management strategies. Y'all'll get cool ideas for organizing materials, establishing good procedures, and even decorating a classroom.
Although information technology'due south vital to observe teachers in the same content areas and course levels as yours, observing outside these parameters will also be hugely informative, so seek out teachers who teach something different from you. And don't limit your observations to classroom instruction: Sit in while a colleague makes a parent phone phone call (those are tough, and in that location's an art to it). Attend an IEP meeting if y'all are allowed. Watch a colleague passenger vehicle a sports team or run a club meeting.
How practise you ask for these observations? Only tell the teacher in question that you want to discover in every bit many classrooms as possible, then enquire if yous can terminate past 5th flow. Simple equally that. They volition almost ever say aye.
iv. Network
Just similar substitute instruction, pupil teaching is an excellent opportunity to go to know lots of people in your field, which can eventually pb to securing a full-time position. Schools are much more than likely to hire someone whose work they are familiar with, so make sure people become to know you lot during your educatee teaching semester. This ways going to the social events, introducing yourself to people yous don't know, eating luncheon in the staff room (at least sometimes) and putting your hand up when volunteers are needed to sell tickets at the basketball game game. Every person yous meet is a potential connection for afterwards employment, then brand lots of connections now.
5. Put Together a Professional Wardrobe
This is an expanse that a lot of student teachers get incorrect. In general, when dressing for school, your clothes should be a footling more than conservative and a little more dressed upwards than what you normally wearable. If you lot are young (in your early twenties) and are teaching students who are older (i.due east., high school) this is especially important considering you need to look unlike from your students. Before school even starts, learn your host schoolhouse'southward clothes code for teachers and follow information technology, keeping in mind that some of the other teachers in your school may non necessarily practise and then. Never mind that: You lot don't have the seniority to thumb your nose at any dress code. Follow it. And for those grey areas, if yous have even a tiny doubt almost something you're wearing (Is this too low-cut? Besides tight? Would this t-shirt offend anyone?), don't vesture information technology.
For inspiration, women should start by searching for Teacher Way on Pinterest, and so check out The Styled Teacher's weblog, where you can detect tons of photos of ensembles that are beautiful AND appropriate for the classroom. For men, Pinterest also has a lot of slap-up ideas for male person teacher mode, and check out this article on building a male instructor'south wardrobe from Real Men Real Style.
half-dozen. Clean Up Your Social Media
If you haven't already done and so, you need to SCRUB every 1 of your social media accounts until they sparkle. Untag yourself from incriminating photos, delete any posts that might be considered controversial, un-like whatever pages that might cause administrators, parents, or students to make unflattering assumptions most you. Switch public settings to private when it is reasonable to do so. Basically, look at your online footprint through the eyes of an administrator who is thinking almost hiring yous, and remove anything they might object to. You are about to begin the phase of your life when you are no longer just a private denizen; role of you is now somewhat public-facing, then your online presence needs to exist professional.
If you think your students are going to want to connect with you on social media, get ahead and ready a "teacher" account correct at present (e.g., Mrs. Grand's Instagram Account), where y'all volition refrain from posting your real-existent-life stuff, and send students there.
7. Have Small Bites
Remember: This is but do. You are not expected to be able to know everything and do everything, and y'all're certainly not expected to exercise it all well. And then when you first to feel overwhelmed by all the things you lot're supposed to exist learning and all the other things you could be trying, just remind yourself to take small bites right now. Good teachers spend their whole careers trying to become it right, and some of the very best will tell yous they still have a lot to learn, and so cut yourself some slack.
viii. Continue a "Next Year" Notebook
It'due south human nature to think y'all're going to remember all the ideas you come up with this semester, all the lessons yous learn, all the things you desire to do differently next time around. I'yard hither to tell you that you won't recollect half of them if you don't write them downwards.
9. Find Your Marigold
If you've never read my commodity about teachers and marigolds, get read it now. I'll wait.
Okay, that applies to pupil teachers too. To really have a wonderful student teaching experience, yous demand to find one person in the building who embodies everything you want to exist in a instructor, so spend as much time with them as you tin can. If yous're very lucky, this could be the person who has been assigned to be your host teacher. If it's non, go notice them. It will make all the difference in the world.
More Advice to Come…
Okay, I'm done for now. I promise this has been helpful. Now I want to hear from the balance of my readers. In the comments below, share your advice for educatee teachers. Let'south usher in the next batch of newbies with gusto. ♥
If you lot're a new instructor, the Cult of PedagogyNew Instructor Checklist will provide a structure to follow every bit you progress through the school year. To download a costless copy, butsign up for my mailing list. Yous'll get the checklist, plus all the other gratis downloads in my Members-Only Library. (If you're already a subscriber and desire this resources, just bank check your most recent email for a link to the Members-Merely Library!)
Source: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/student-teaching/