Personal Concerns and Next Steps

I too have many concerns when it comes to my future of teaching. I see all of the teachers in their classrooms and wonder how they became so knowledgeable because I have no idea still what I'm doing. I still question whether or not I would be a good teacher and more so, I am too worried that I will let people down. There is just so much too learn and so little time to learn it. But I have been very thankful and have learned a lot so far, I am just excited to see what the future holds and how smart *someday* I will be. I just cannot wait to have my own classroom and students and be able to decorate my classroom, but I know all of that will be here before I know it. :)

Personal Concerns and next steps

As do many of my classmates I have many concerns about going into to next semester of student teaching. Many of my concerns stem from not fully understanding the use of standards and how to know for sure if your students are learning what they need to be. As a first year teacher do I teach what I think are the main ideas of the standards and wait to see if my class passes or fails or do we have a education class that teaches correct application of the standards. I have written many lesson plans with standards listed on them but I am not truely sure if I am covering in depth what needs to be taught per each standard. When will I know for sure if what I am teaching is what my students need to know. The only solution I see to this with less than six months before I am in a classroom is creating more lesson plans and trying to understand the true depth behind all the standards in all the content areas.
Another concern I have is in specialization in content areas. Even in second grade now the students are switching teachers for certain classes. I do not feel as if I am strong enough in any one area to teach in depth about it. I hope these are the fears that all near student teachers face and my solution is to work hard and do my best to understand what my students need to learn to be successful.
With concerns,
Hannah

Summary and Synthesis

I have found this math class to be very interesting. In our last class we learned how to find the area of some geometric shapes. I had already been taught the formulas to find area but never looked at it the way we did in class. I found it interesting the way we really used problem solving to find area rather than just plugging numbers into formulas. I really like to work through problems, so the way we did the problem solving suited me well. It is cool how you work through a problem first and then see how it fits into the formula. I believe that doing problems and teaching this way will help students learn and think about problems as more than just finding answers.

Summary and Synthesis

In the first classes I thought we were mainly focusing on the standards and teaching to them. I soon discovered that we are just looking at them so we know and understand their meanings more in depth. I did not really know how they were listed. I also think the main focus of the class is for us to think outside the box. Learning how to use problem solving in our teaching and creating lessons that show the process and why it is the process. I am a little concerned with what is going to be on the test and our further assessments. The Ponca Park Project was a nice idea, but I think it did not get the point acrossed that the teachers were hoping for. It was fun to get out of the classroom though.