Monday was used to figure out how the class was arranged, what kind of students my master teacher had, and how she managed her classroom. She takes a middle approach to managing noise and activity – allowing some of each, if kept to a tolerable level. As a result, the classes are at a conversational level of volume during projects, but things never get out of hand. In her five periods of classes, she has three heterogeneous groups, one ELL period, and quite by accident (due to only one class period of Geometry offered at the middle school), one Gate/Gifted period. She has 162 students over five classes, and then 23 “repeats” for homeroom in the morning. Her class is arranged in nine “quad” groups with seven computers on the wall space for students to use when they have computer projects due, or Study Island to make up. Also, I noticed that throughout the week, independent study Geometry students were sent to her classroom to use these computers.
Tuesday through Friday was used to further observe, but mostly to try to get to know some of the students. I played the role of “Aid” for a day, passing out papers and helping with in-class computer work, and then I played the role of tutor/homework helper for struggling groups for the remaining three days. During the three days, I worked with 11 different “quad” groups of students, and learned maybe 50 names over all. At the end of the week, my master teacher gave me homework to look over the online teacher resources of the next thee chapters of the class textbook. In this way, I can begin to organize my thoughts about what I will teach in the coming weeks. In the remaining five weeks, we should get through ~2.5 chapters of work.
As I reflect on the week, the student teaching part was a breeze, largely because of years of volunteer teaching in my wife’s classroom (I taught Art History to her 4th grade students 2-4 times a month, every month for a ten year period), and because of recent substitute teaching experience. Nothing was particularly new, but it was absolutely wonderful to be in the same class setting over a one week period. I do like the consistency, and I look forward to the remaining five weeks (and six more weeks in the next assigned classroom). The difficult part is that I also have three evening classes to attend over this 12 week period and that makes for some long days. I’m really praying for stamina right now! Between student teaching and classes alone, I logged in 65 hours this week, and this does not include any homework time, which should consume every moment of my weekend. I expect this to be the norm for the next 11 weeks.