Inquiry Case Report: Reprising the Student Role Background The setting for this inquiry report takes

place at Kramer Elementary

School where I was a student teacher for third grade. The classroom consisted of 21 students of diverse backgrounds. I was teaching all content areas under the supervision of a cooperating teacher with 32 years of experience. As part of the student teaching program, we have university supervisors who come and observe us formally four times during the experience. The incident that is going to be described occurred in the middle of my student teaching. My supervisor came in to do a second formal observation. The lesson I prepared was in social studies, and I sent her my lesson plan the night before. By this time I was comfortable teaching in front of a classroom. I was ready to show her what I had prepared and wanted to give my best effort. Incident It was the second Monday in October when I was to teach the social

studies lesson I prepared. The lesson focused on learning about basic economics: learning how goods are made, learning about imports and exports, and learning about manufacturing. My supervisor came in with her laptop, ready to take notes on my teaching. When I began the lesson, I had students take out their books so we could go over the chapter in the book. I wanted to make sure every child was with me, and this took a long time to do. Next, I passed out worksheets for them to fill out as we went along. While reading the chapter as a group, we would come across answers to the questions and I would address these answers. When we figured out the answers together, I would write the answers on the board and students were essentially copying what I wrote. When I was doing this, I realized already that this wasnt learning, and I had made

an error on my part. From there, I only felt more sinking feelings in my stomach. For instance, we got to a part on assembly lines in the book, and one of my students didnt understand the concept. For some reason, I had no idea or was too nervous about my performance to make this concept real. My cooperating teacher jumped in and gave examples of assembly lines such as making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That was when my students became really excited, and I began to feel more incompetent. Finally, the last activity I had them do was a group activity in which they were to find objects in the room and figure out where they came from. This part was enjoyable, but it took a very long time and some students were off task. When the activity and lesson were finally over, I realized the activity went way over the 30 minutes I had planned on originally. When my supervisor and I stepped out to discuss the lesson, I never felt more embarrassed during student teaching until that day. During our discussion, my supervisor raised the concept of constructive criticism. Some of the things she told me I already knew, such as that I went over my planned time. However, she also pointed out that having the students simply copy what I wrote did not show any learning, that I did not have enough differentiation in my activities, and that I needed to make my students more autonomous. While I agreed with her on all of those points, there was barely anything positive she could say to me. That day made me question whether I was in the right profession. Later in the week, we met to do my midterm evaluation. My cooperating teacher, supervisor, and I talked about my strengths and weaknesses. When we got to the weaknesses, a great amount of what happened on that Monday was brought to life. My supervisor believed that I needed to go to another school and observe other teachers

instructional strategies. Furthermore, she said it would be good for me because I needed help. While I knew her intentions were good, later that night I cried for a long time. For someone who is a perfectionist, I felt like a failure. Those lesson and midterm evaluations were huge turning points in my teaching career. I ended up going to observe, learned great techniques, and only improved my craft. By the end of the experience my supervisor and I parted on good terms. She said she saw amazing growth and knew I would continue to grow as a teacher. Even though I was becoming a teacher, I had to put myself back in the role of the student because I will always be a lifelong learner. I can say comfortably that Im not perfect, and that is okay. Discussion When the incident first occurred, I felt a wide range of negative emotions.

There were feelings of anger, attack, dread, and sadness all wrapped into one. When I look back now, I realized that I was trying to find blame. I had the irrational thought that my supervisor was being completely insensitive to my feelings, that I just had one bad lesson, and it did not speak for me as a teacher. However, the new me would say I was caught up in a whirlwind I could not handle. I now appreciate what my supervisor did in order to help me grow as a teacher because it shows me that she truly cared and wanted me to be successful. She would give me books to read, took me to the other building to observe, all because she wanted to make sure that I was working on myself as much as possible. Some things I would do differently would be to change the lesson, use different approaches, and watch my time. I felt it wasnt my best piece of work and didnt do me justice as a teacher. Furthermore, sticking to time would have helped keep us on schedule

and using different strategies such as prior knowledge and life connections could have made the lesson much more rich. However, while I wish the lesson could have gone better, after the experience I began attacking my weaknesses. I tried multiple strategies, I worked on differentiation, I would time myself with a timer, and I began to see results. The next time my supervisor saw me she was impressed by how far I had come. She also told me I would continue to grow twenty years from now, which has helped me put my career into perspective as well as my own life. While this experience was humiliating for me at the time, I wouldnt have changed a thing. Im a firm believer in everything happening for a reason. This experience happened to show me that I was selling myself short. I needed to prove to others as well as myself that I was in the right career. This experience also changed my approach to teaching and allowed for me to reflect on my choices. Very recently, I interviewed with a district and the principal asked me about the idea of growth and areas of improvement. I could proudly describe what I was eager to work on and show that I will always be growing. Sometimes, it is beneficial to become the student again and learn as well as reflect on what went well and what didnt work well. Otherwise, I couldnt be the strong teacher Im becoming today. Questions Question: How could the teaching methods I learned over the course of my education as well as those I experienced have affected my lesson? I believe that teaching methods I learned in the past made a huge impact on my lesson. As Tom Poetter says Teacher Leadership for the 21st Century, Similar challenges confront new teachers, who tend to try to replicate the ways they were taught (Poetter,

2012). This is what I fell victim to during this lesson. As a student, I was used to listening to the teacher, taking notes, and doing activities. I tried to replicate this method when I was teaching my students. Clearly, just because those methods worked for some doesnt mean it works for all. I have learned very quickly that not all students learn the same way, and I needed to work more on my differentiation techniques. I had to step outside of my comfort zone and try new things based on my students needs, not my own.

Question: Why did I take my supervisors constructive criticism as poorly as I did? How can this help me grow as a teacher? I took my supervisors constructive criticism poorly because I despise failure. Over the years, I have learned that I am an extremely emotional individual. When somebody gives me constructive criticism, my brain says that it is given to help me, but my heart says that it is given to hurt me. Unfortunately, I listened to my heart a little too much and had a meltdown. I needed to find a balance between listening to my head and heart, which took quite a bit of time to develop. Furthermore, I believe learning how to take constructive criticism can help me grow as a teacher because I will always be learning and growing. Constructive criticism is part of the job, and it will not be the last time I hear it. Ive learned to appreciate it because the individual giving the constructive criticism clearly cares about me and wants me succeed by helping me get better every time.

Question: Why was I afraid of making my students become more independent?

I believe that I was afraid of making my students become more independent because I lacked confidence as a beginning teacher. At the time, I believe I felt so scared to let them work on projects on their own because I did not want students to fall behind. Also, I wanted to make sure that they understood the concepts first before the independent part of the lesson began. In an odd sense, I compare it to when a mother finally lets her son or daughter leave the nest. There is that feeling of fear because you want to hold your childs hand throughout life and protect them at all costs. However, you cannot protect children from everything in the world. It is a hard realization, and that is one I came to as a teacher. I needed to trust that my students could work independently, and I couldnt hold their hands every single day. They needed to continue to grow as learners and individuals. However, if they needed anything, I was still there for them.