Midterm Reflection

After reviewing my midterm evaluation with my cooperating teacher and my university supervisor, I am more aware of my strengths and weaknesses as an upcoming teacher. One area of strength is that I am able to design and organize learning environments to accommodate learners. I am teaching in a fifth grade class with 25 students, all with different learning styles and individual needs. At times, it can be very difficult to teach to all of them, but, having a great cooperating teacher as a model, I have learned many different ways to include all students and make adaptations for those who fall behind, or miss out on most of the lesson because they were in another class. It is very common for me to adjust my lesson half-way through because of the diversity in learning styles and abilities. I hope I can continue recognizing when changes and adaptations need to be made in my lessons in the second half of the semester. There are a couple of areas in which I have slight weaknesses but are very pertinent to becoming a successful teacher. The first is a part of classroom management. I need to work on projecting my voice and guiding large group discussions. There are times when I end up letting the students voices become louder than mine, especially during whole-class discussions. I have such a quiet voice that sometimes it is hard for students to hear me. I need to improve my management strategies and practice different techniques to get the students to understand that it is my voice that should ever be louder than the others. Another area in which I need to work on is implementing more technology in my lessons, not only technology that I can use but technology that the students can use as well. Technology is such a huge part in classrooms now and there are many great programs and aids for students to work with. Time management is very important in my fifth grade class, especially with 25 students. It is very difficult to allow time for technology exploration when there is a pressing

need to get through the book. I need to figure out a way to balance a lesson while engaging with tech at the same time. One idea is to find a Smart Board lesson that compliments what I am teaching and allows the students to manipulate what is on the board. This would be especially useful in science and math. During the second half of student teaching I will continue to reach my goals of learning more about different technologies to use in the classroom. I will also continue to work on my classroom management skills, an area in which I think all teachers can continue to work for improvement. Also, I will continue on working on my lesson delivery. Although I have not completely accomplished all these goals, I have improved greatly since I started student teaching.