So, I'm a Teacher Now?

Week 3

Before and After of Manheim's Course Recruitment Board

This week I began officially teaching with the start of the new marking period. First thing non-teachers need to know about this whole thing is that teaching is exhausting! Currently, I'm only teaching one class and am finding myself WORN (loads more respect for veteran teachers). Still, looking back over this past week I am proud of my accomplishments, though they may not be perfect. Major takeaways from this week would be that there's power in planning and don't plan on things going as planned. 

There's Power in Planning

• Teaching my first few lessons this week, I have come to the realization that I struggle determining how long things take in the classroom. For example, Tuesday, I gave a bell ringer that took 20 minutes (not ideal) and the next day I gave the students an assignment that took half the time I anticipated. Untimely, these situations have shown me that I should always be prepared for things to run long or short, at least until I have a better understanding of my class/their abilities and speed. There's nothing worse than awkwardly standing at the front of the classroom with 15 minutes unplanned (I would know). One thing I did this week when noticing my lesson might wrap up earlier than anticipated was ask more questions and try to break down topics/ideas further than originally planned. 

Don't Plan on Things Going as Planned

• I had to learn this lesson the tough way on Tuesday when conducting my first ever class lab. In this inquiry based lab, we were comparing the impacts of water content on popcorn popping. Unfortunately, when making the worksheet, I wrote the wrong time down for the popping time resulting in no one's popcorn popping the way I had planned. While I did manage to save this lesson, I was disappointed in this outcome it did teach me a few things. 1. Read and work through the worksheet before giving it to students and 2. Plan on Things Not Going as Planned. Prior to this lesson I hadn't anticipated having any issues with this lesson because everything seemed transparent and clear. So, when something went wrong, I was completely thrown off. While silly mistakes like this can be avoided, don't anticipate they'll never happen.

"Happy to Teach" Moments From This Week

• Taught my first official lesson
• Recited the part of the advisor for the first time in an FFA meeting
• One of my most problematic students showed up for their first FFA meeting
• Attended my first Lancaster County Ag teacher Meeting

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  The Lab Results 

Funny Moments From this Week

• The chaos known as my first lab
•  I have one student who answers "corn" to just about every question I ask
• Mrs. Anderson got stuck in the snow storm, called me in a panic 5 minutes before class began in a panic. She proceeded to have the worst morning ever as we had a shipment delivery, a substitutes in the other two agriculture classes, and about another 1,000 fires to put out
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