Student teaching goals

Goal 1: Make detailed, consistently-formatted lesson plans for every lesson I lead. I will have to develop a format to use, research Common Core particulars and note which requirements are being met within a lesson, and budget for time.

Outcome: My cooperating teacher and I met on Sunday afternoons to firm up lesson plans. Early on he told me that he expected some sort of theoretical basis for all of my lessons, which threw me for a loop at first. But in doing the research to find these best practices, I found all kinds of useful items to add to my repertoire. This is the sort of meticulousness I was very happy to have demanded of me by my amazing cooperating teacher.


Goal 2: Make supplemental aids for help in student writing. My idea is to make screencasts ala Bozeman’s Paul Anderson, except that mine will detail common mistakes in writing and how to identify and fix them.

Outcome: This was an utter failure, as it became apparent that I had enough on my plate without doing this as well. Also complicating things is Lolo's use of the OdysseyWare intervention, which took most of the RTI time that I would've used for tutorials to help struggling writers. I may revisit this in the future, but it would almost certainly have to happen over a summer, when I would have sufficient time to plan and make them.

Goal 3: Decentralize lessons. Lessons that I have witnessed work best for cooperating teachers are generally those where the student is given tools and then expected to use them to teach themselves. Whenever avoidable, I do not wish to be lecturing. The bulk of my lessons will be students interacting with their peers.

Outcome: My cooperating teacher emphasized this from the beginning, but it took a slightly different direction than I expected. It turns out that middle school students need more guidance than I had anticipated, especially with the above-grade-level texts we tended to use. But late in the semester, the 8th graders formed book circles, and my cooperating teacher and I each joined half of them. Two of the groups were reading books I had never yet read, and the third group was reading a book I hadn't read since high school. It was cool to act as a fellow meaning-maker with them, letting the discussions go where they may without being the 'sage on the stage.'


In all, I feel good about accomplishing two of the goals. The one I did not accomplish was simply a little far-fetched in my circumstances, but I still think it is worthwhile and I will revisit it when I have more time to devote to it.