Week 1: RTL Chess
Hey everybody! I hope everyone has had a good summer and is roaring and ready to jump back into the classroom! I know I am pumped to kick off my senior year here at Penn State to get ready to finally be on the other side of the classroom. I am so excited for all the the future opportunities I'll get to do this Fall and I hope y'all can hang on and ride out this adventure with me!
First day so you know what that means! First-day pictures, my favorite... but in all seriousness as I take my 17th first day of school picture I couldn't be more excited. After completing the PSU Ag Ed Bootcamp with my cohort and our professors and colleagues I feel ready to dive right in and make this semester the best yet.
And dive right in is what we did, here are some highlights of what has happened in our first few days in the classroom already.
What Happened
We were asked to individually select a Reflective Teaching Lesson (RTL) and then give a 10-minute lesson on the information provided within the packet. There were many options, but the one that stood out the most to me was the one related to Chess. I chose this because it was something that I challenged myself to learn this summer and although it was difficult to learn and compete well, I stayed persistent, and in the end, I still am not good enough to beat most players, but I enjoy playing. This has taught me that is the ideology I want to continue into my career. I know I will never be the best, but I can always keep striving for it when I know I am really doing it because I love it.
Okay, back to the RTL...
Next steps...
The timer ran out and I had to look at my peers, my students, and hand them a quiz that they were totally unprepared for and mentally apologize to them as much as I could.
Prepare, Practice, and Prepare some more. That is what I am going to do as much as possible for the rest of this semester. Looking back I should've tried a dry run instead of assuming how long things may take. I thought I could easily get through my interest approach in 2-3 minutes, but I was just ending up on the 5-minute mark and I still had what I thought was 6 minutes of lesson yet but turned out could have been 20.
Jargon, I had way too much of it, so next time I am going to stick to teaching only what my objectives ask if I am in a time crunch. Yes, its fun to go off on tangents and talk about other really cool stuff that may relate, but you can't quiz them on stories and sometimes time does not allow you to tell them.
How does it relate to what I know about teaching and learning?
I felt that this assignment, or opportunity really related to the idea of when we are first-year teachers and are going into a system that has been teaching the same classes over and over. This gave us a chance to take a lesson, or idea of a lesson, and create one that is our own. It allowed us to use our experience as studnets to understand what might work best to learn and our experience as a future teacher to know what it takes to teach that to the students. We created lessons out of a pre-made lesson idea and made them work for us and for our students.
Characteristics of Effective Teaching
Adaptive
A good teacher I always feel like they have to be quick on their feet because you never know whats coming your way. Especially in an Ag classroom, you might have a plant science day, but next thing you know your rabbits are having babies and you have to divert your attention to that and your plans get spoiled.
Patient
Ohhhh those kids somedays are gonna have you on the edge of your seat, and not in a good way, but we gotta learn to breathe and handle the situations with professionalism and calmness in order to not show your frustrations.
Humourus
Some of the best classrooms I have been a part of have had me laughing the hardest, but I also learned alot. Students feel more connected to you when you can make them laugh with witty jokes and comments. As long as you can stay within the walls of "what's okay", make your studnets laugh, it's good for them.
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