Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Numero Uno

So, today I conducted my first lesson. All by myself. For 7th graders (as opposed to my classmates). And I survived! Yay!

I was nervous all morning, knowing that I would have to do it. But my CT taught the lesson to our other class yesterday, so I knew I was just doing the exact same thing she had already done. Plus, my CT was super supportive, telling me to just concentrate on the academics and she would handle any behavior issues.

So I took a deep breath and...just did it. And it went well! We moved one rather boisterous student to the front row, and he turned out to be the most eager participant. My CT hasn't actually done a whole lot of discussion in the classes, so I was afraid I would have to pry responses out of the students.

We have this super cool tool in our classroom called an ELMO. It's an advanced overhead projector, that rather than just projecting the transparencies will project anything, including a text book or novel. So I prepared the questions ahead of time, and was able to fill in the answers on lined paper as we came up with answers as a class. And I could put the novel there to show students what page or paragraph we were referring to if they couldn't find it.

All in all, it was a great way to start. Our other class had terrible behavior on Friday and Monday, so I'm glad I had the "easier" group of students to help ease me in. And I probably won't be totally alone until next week at the earliest, which is great.

One of my classmates is telling me about how her CT is heaping all of her work on my classmate, and I feel so bad for her, since my experience so far has been great.

I have so much more to share but no time to do it at the moment. My computer isn't dead yet, so hopefully I'll be able to update all of you more often and get back to reading your blogs - you have no idea how much I miss them! I confess that I tried to access a blog from school and it was blocked. Oops! But hopefully I'll have more time later this week. Thanks to all of you for hanging in there and being so supportive!!!

4 comments:

Cupcake Blonde said...

I am so proud of you! I can't wait to hear more. And don't worry. We know you are busy. Come by when you can, we're not going any where. :)

Robin said...

I am soooooooo proud of you and excited for your students. Your enthusiasm is going to get them excited as well. I can't wait to hear more!

Anonymous said...

Well, yay! I knew there was a reason you came to mind yesterday! I was just thinking how I hadn't seen a post of yours come across my "following" list in a while, then I remembered your new job and... well... here you are!

jellybean said...

so glad things are going so well! :) i knew things would be great for you!