Final Reflection

This will be the final reflection for my teaching experiences for this semester. Even though my time was cut short by the birth of my little girl, I learned a great deal from my second rotation site based teacher and the students in her class.

I had always believed I wanted to teach the early elementary students. I had been apprehensive about teaching the upper elementary students because I knew their curriculum was so heavily influenced by the TAKS tests and I did not think it would be as fun to teach. How wrong I was, for my second rotation I was assigned to fourth grade. I found these students to be independent, creative, funny, and easy to motivate. Since four grade was course specific this year, the entire fourth grade would rotate to the various classrooms for the different curriculum instruction. Teaching lessons to these students gave me the opportunity to broaden the scope of my lesson plans to include more creative tasks as well as the opportunity to critique and perfect my lessons.

Over all my experiences teaching this semester has been very rewarding. When working in small groups, I have seen students who want to understand and just need a little extra clarification from the teacher. I have also experienced students who have bad days and take their frustrations out in the classroom. The teacher’s ability to help and handle these outbursts appropriately can help the students readjust focus to the classroom activities, as well as maintaining the focus of the classroom. Finally, working with the independent students, who work on their studies and finish early need extra lessons or activities so they do not become board.

My second rotation site based teacher was very easy to talk to and gave me the confidence to put at ease my hesitation for teaching the older students. Through our discussions I learned about the TAKS testing and review, and feel more confident about my ability to reflect on my lessons, my methods of instructions and ability to work with the grade level teachers to create lessons. I look forward to my QUEST 3 experience and teaching second grade.