Midterm reflection

My midterm reflection brought me mostly good news. It came a few weeks earlier than normal at the request of my supervisor, who seemed to think I was ready to sub on my own.

One of the most valuable things to me so far has been Sunday meetings with Dave Christensen, my cooperating teacher. We use a few hours on Sundays to reflect on where we've been and plan where we're going. These have been massively useful for being organized in the coming week. We decide what we're going to do, why, and how we're going to get the students there. And because there is no deadline like there is during a planning period during the schoolday, there is a great deal less pressure to get it done. Instead, we try to get it right. This is the sort of meticulousness I needed for my student teaching goal of a standardized, useful lesson planning format. Dave had a few suggestions to make sure I am using best practices, but overall, I feel good about what I've been able to accomplish here.

My university supervisor was formerly the principal of the school where I student teach, so the three of us know one another pretty well and tend to be on the same page. Both of them noted my ease with talking with students, whether formally or informally, which is something I've consciously strived for. Both my supervisor and cooperating teacher complimented me on my knowledge and use of the Common Core Standards, though I feel I can't take full credit for it because Mr. Christensen has made it such a focus in our planning sessions. 

Another thing in my favor is content knowledge, which is a point of pride for me. While I want my classroom in general to be decentralized, I feel it's important to be an authority on the subject, both to answer questions for the students and to model the lifelong learning that I feel I've cultivated in myself. 

The two pieces of criticism I got from them were related. I need to work over the next several years to broaden my base of best practices. While we got a deal of it during ENT 440-442, what I learned was necessarily shaped by the preferences of the professors. In short, I have lots of Kylene Beers and Kelly Gallagher ideas for understanding reading, but little from elsewhere. The other piece of criticism is that I need to be more active in professional communities of English teaching. Fixing the second problem will likely go a long way in fixing the first, in that reading more and talking more with others who have experience will help me find more best practices for accomplishing the goals I have for my students.

In all: I feel pretty swell. The criticisms were not unexpected or unwarranted, and they were downplayed compared to the strengths that I've cultivated over these first several weeks. In addressing the criticisms, I can add to the good feeling I have at the end of the days when I feel like I've done right by my students.