“but even more, came from a lack of confidence”

This makes a lot of sense to me. This semester, I have felt several times like a HUGE failure of a teacher. What an strange feeling for those of us who have been used to being pretty successful the last couple of years!

My biggest learning experiences have been from falling on my face though… these have literally changed my approach and philosophy. Lets post on some of these moments!

Garrett, I think you’re right that the systems part is a big piece all teachers figure out in their first year. Did you feel like your 2 week session was enough to learn the other half? I’m not sure though that I would say a 2 week experience would have been enough for me. I’ve seen how much I’ve grown with the last three months of daily teaching with feedback, collaborative planning, and conversations. I know that I’m going to be 5x the teacher I would have been after this experience.

I am getting really excited for my first year! I should be hearing back from 2 networks in the next week with final decisions! I’ll keep you updated

I also like your idea of incorporating more reading. If they could incorporate activities that supported students in finding information texts, that would be great!

3) As for the alignment, my CT and I are going to be incorporating the system into our lab period which is an extra period to help struggling students. We thought it would be a great way to give more skills based support so that those students could better participate in class.

However, half of teaching is creating and upholding the systems for your students, which is something that TFA teachers learn quickly by teaching in their first year, and student teachers may not fully embrace.

One other point, TFA teacher do teach summer school every day for 2 weeks. This is supposed to simulate the student teaching period, and in my opinion is enough to get teachers prepared.

1. The videos aren’t of the highest quality: few graphics, muddles through sometimes, examples are limited, scaffolding of questions is also limited.

2. I feel that he tried to verbalize a textbook, so basically he’s creating a resources to kids that probably don’t already read enough.

3. The “mastery” and analysis is brilliant, and a concrete way to see progress from students, but this is an all or nothing technique. Sometimes is hard to align your objectives, tests, and summatives with the questions on electronic software. So if you use the resource, it needs to be the main focus of the class so everything’s fluent.

Is there promise…yes, but better videos, some incorporation of reading, and full on systems of education are needed to make this successful.

I’m excited to hear how you are going to use this theme in your classroom. Do you have your placement yet?

So are you teaching a full time day? How many preps do you have?