Back to School Week Fall 2019 RTL Reflection
This has been an exciting and stressful week back to school. During this week we did our first pre-teaching lesson of the semester. I was feeling alright before my scheduled lesson but as soon as I started my mind went blank and I forgot what I wanted to say. I knew what I needed to say but I felt like I couldn’t get the words out. Through my classmates and instructors, I found that I did better than I thought I did. I know that I still have a ways to go but I look forward to seeing how I progress through this semester. One of the things that I did notice rewatching my lesson is that I appeared less stressed than I felt during the lesson. However, in spite of this, I had trouble deciding what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. Due to this, the main question that I have is how do I keep myself calm while I am giving a lesson? Even when I feel I know the material well or I am simply very interested in the topic I have trouble staying calm. I know that practice and experience will help me to gain confidence in teaching, but are there any methods that have worked for you?
My desire to reduce my stress levels while teaching by learning new methods to calm myself ties nicely into my idea of teaching and learning. When I become a teacher that doesn’t mean that I will be done learning. The best teachers in my mind are those who are always learning and trying to improve themselves so that they can be of greater benefit to their students. I plan to continue learning and growing throughout my life so that I can become not only the best teacher that I can be but also the best version of myself possible. By learning new methods to keep myself calm during lessons I will be able to focus more on what I am teaching. As I gain more skills and experience at teaching, through the practice lessons of this semester and my student teaching in the spring I hope to continue to expand my abilities as a teacher. I plan to continue learning new information and skills to become the best Agriscience teacher I can be.
I have provided links below to my lesson plan, google slides and the presentation that I used for this lesson.
Lesson Plan: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1002fvVdSsLGLWGpZJKHxDKInaV5c67xnmnIlmSwivV4/editGoogle Slides:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mbPBdeB4bzoGRREGIK29Z5UMrtdNWxJ2vHx0iP_pAq4/edit#slide=id.pEdthena Presentation:
You'll have great empathy and insight to pass on to your students who struggle with public speaking as you figure out more ways to relax your nerves!
ReplyDeleteFor me, I still get nervous when I have to talk in front of people (more so my peers than complete strangers), honestly practice is what helped me the most. Volunteering to put myself in situations where I would have to be in front of people, even though it stretched me out of my comfort zone. Also, finding ways to build confidence in who I am as a person helped me have confidence really in any task that I had to complete.
I'm excited to grow alongside you this year!
I didn’t get the feeling from you that you were nervous during your lesson! I thought you knew what you wanted to say and said it! What I do is constantly move when I am talking and keep changing where I’m looking. This helps distract my brain from whatever else I am thinking about at the time. I use the energy instead to move around!
ReplyDeleteAbbie, I am excited for your journey over the next year. Great job with your first reflection and thank you for linking your lesson and supporting materials. I believe part of the reason for having the lab is to allow you to experience the environment in the classroom. As you progress in the semester and teach lessons more and more than the more comfortable you will feel. When I do not know a topic, I also get nervous. A strategy that helps me is to intentionally plan time for students to work on something with partners or independently so I can gather my thoughts so I can transition smoothly. A short video clip is another great resource to support what you are talking about and gives you time to collect yourself. Another is to have my lesson plan on my clipboard or iPad to check for information or what is happening next. I will also put the agenda for the day on the board so I do not lose my order. With having a block schedule I will write it on the board so the students know what is happening but really it is for me to stay on track. Lastly, in my first year I would be soo nervous for a new lesson that I will say it out loud on my drive to school and envision myself in the classroom. This helped calm my nerves. Practice will only make you better at teaching and more comfortable in front of a classroom so take every chance you get. Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteI think you did a better job than you think you did. We all have space to grow to become better educators. I think that this was a great experience to document where we all started! I do think that you could move around a little bit more. To keep myself calm, I just keep looking around the room at my students to see if they are understanding the material that I am giving them. I think the nervs will go away when we start working on our weaknesses.
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