VII.

Student Teaching Experience Reflection

How Student Teaching Shaped my Philosophy
The wealth of knowledge I have gained from student teaching was never more apparent than it was as I
sat with my fianc, a current EDUC 450 student at Rocky Mountain High School as he wrote a lesson plan. He
told me he had to create an assessment, and asked me what it should be. I asked what I thought was the obvious
question: What was his learning target?
For the next several hours, we started his lesson from scratch. He knew what he wanted to do in his
lesson, but couldnt put words to what he wanted students to learn, or why. We shaped a learning target, then
success criteria, then created a formative assessment that would meet the success criteria. Next, we chose
instructional strategies that would provide students with the knowledge they needed to complete the formative
assessment. Finally, we created the instructional materials, the PowerPoint, he needed to instruct his lesson. As
we edited it, I realized how in touch I had become with my student's needs.
If it was my class, I would need to do my PowerPoint on white slides with black text, or they wont be
able to see.
Do you want your students to take notes? If you want them to take notes you need a way to make it
clear what they should record, or youll lose them when they try to copy everything you say?
Where are your instructions? When we do writings, my students need clear instructions, or we waste
time.
Are you going to model that? You could do an example on the board.
What are the discussion questions? What are you going to ask? Most of my students need clear
question in order to come up with an answer
At my comments, he asked me why I was holding their hand. Why was I walking them through my
lesson? Shouldnt I allow them to build skills independently, and work out the answers to their own questions
using their resources? And this will be some teachers philosophy. It might even be his. But it isnt mine.
I look at my unit goals. I look at the learning targets Ive created to meet those unit goals. And I create
lessons and I use strategies and I make ugly PowerPoints in order to optimize our brief time together so that
students can meet those learning targets. I will repeat my instructions so often, and put my expectations in
writing in so many formats, that my students will finally understand, and will efficiently be able to learn without
confusion about instructions and expectations. I wont lose myself in my love of history that I fail to create
stimulating questions, clear instructions, and transparent expectations because I think they will jump into
learning the way I did. I will remember that most of them feel about history the way I felt about science.
And I wont do all of this every day. I will forget and fail and get lost in the moment, but I know what
my students need, and I will try to design lesson plans that meet their sometimes weird, often challenging needs.
Having this realization as I helped my fianc lesson plan, I realized just how much I had learned during my year
at Fort Collins High School. Im a proficient instructor, but more importantly, I am in touch with my students.
When I lesson plan I dont plan like a teaching student, I plan like a teacher.

Reflecting on Student Feedback

After my students completed their unit assessment, they provided me with feedback on my lessons. This
feedback helped me determine what successes I had and where I was challenged. They affirmed that the
Timeline project was a useful tool. Their strong support of it in their written feedback was particularly
encouraging because it was contrary to the impressions I was getting during class. This served as a reminder
that sometimes the signs of engagement I am seeing do not match how students are actually thinking and feeling
about something.
My students feedback also helped me identify a primary area for growth. The three comments that were
repeated were that I covered material too quickly, that they would have wanted to learn more about one specific
topic, and that they wish we had done a larger variety of activities. I believe these all point towards a need for
me to develop my differentiation and modification skills. Specifically, I would have liked to have created more
supports for students who needed assistance, enrichment opportunities for students were passionate about these
areas, and a larger variety of activities for students with different learning styles. The lessons I struggled with in
class were the ones in which I was more focused on the content than the students. Going forward, I know the
importance of knowing my students as individuals. It is challenging to keep every student's unique needs in
mind when I am trying to provide instruction and management, but I know that if I frontload my efforts by
creating lessons with specific modifications and differentiations offered, meeting this goal will be possible.

The Student Teaching Impact

As my supervisor and my cooperating teacher know, I do not plan to be a classroom teacher. We all
went into this semester with that knowledge. My cooperating teacher and I created plans based on what would
be most beneficial to my development with that in mind. Every day I work with students is enriching in my
personal and professional development. These interactions have affected the way I supervise, the way I plan and
prepare, and the way that I reflect on my experience. I am bolder when speaking to my managers and I have
more faith in my skills. When I present workshops and trainings, I will use the same instructional strategies I
use in my classroom.
But the 40 hours a week I spend with my 110 students and cooperating teacher will mean more than
instructional strategies and management plans when I start my professional career in July. Watching a handful
of them perform in Mary Poppins this March, I felt so much pride in them. Hearing Ryleigh, who isnt even my
student, whos a TA for someone else during 8th period, talk about soccer, I feel so much excitement for her.
These happy, whooshing feelings dont only happen when theyre doing something great. They happen every
day I get to exist with them and think about who they are going to be and the things they will get to do. I am
reminded of an 8th-grade teacher of mine who told us one day how much she loved each of us. This was not a
teacher I was particularly close to, and I remember sitting in awkward silence as she said this. But now, looking
at their sometimes weird, occasionally genius, always unique selves, I know what she meant. I love them.
Theyve expanded my ability for empathy. Knowing them has made me a more loving person in all the
facets of my life. Learning about their lives has encouraged me to treat everyone as an individual, to remember
that everyone is living a complicated story I know nothing about. I wondered, when I started this semester, why
I was student teaching. I knew I wasnt going to be a classroom teacher. Why I was paying to be at a high
school 40 hours a week was confusing. But this has been the most influential and important academic semester
of my undergraduate career. Im not simply more knowledgeable and more experienced for being a student
teacher, Im better for knowing my students.