Student Teaching Experience Reflection

During my student teaching experience, I acquired a meaningful insight into

my goals as an educator. While there were successes, there were also areas in
which I saw opportunities for growth and further development. There were
alterations to my teaching philosophy that I was not anticipating and my ability to
adapt and alter my techniques and styles was developed exponentially over the
course of my experience at Walt Clark Middle School.
While student teaching at Walt Clark, I had the opportunity to work with a
diverse group of students with varying needs. One of my proudest accomplishments
is the solid, respectful relationships I was able to form with my students. Being able
to develop meaningful relationships with my students aided to my other successes
in student teaching. Incorporating tools and strategies I have learned through my
education, I was able to create insightful, purposeful lessons and units. Students
were engaged in topics and materials a majority of the time. Occasionally, I had to
bring other things in for certain classes, such as more visual or interactive tasks, in
order to engage certain learners, but I valued that learning opportunity. Because of
the relationships I built with my students, the experience was incredible. They
enjoyed taking this journey with me and did not want me to leave. I will be staying
for the remainder of the year because it is important to me and to my students that
they finish 8th grade with me in their classroom. The amount of growth,
improvement, and responsibility I have seen in my students is one of the most
rewarding elements of my student teaching experience; especially with students the
other 8th grade teachers had struggles with reaching.
Taking every opportunity as a learning experience, I have found that I am
walking away from my student teaching experience with an abundance of
knowledge and strategies. My ability to deviate from lesson plans and adjust
instruction sporadically as needed by students was something I thought I would
really struggle with. I am a planner by nature, so I was nervous about deviating from
the plan, from the norm. I found that I have a natural ability to go with the flow,
determine when my students need additional or alternate instruction methods and
make changes or adaptations on the fly as necessary. Through practice and
reflection, I have learned that it is okay when things do not go according to plan.
Time management is something I am still working on because of this issue. Learning
how different each class and each group of students are was essential to developing
my management strategies. I am still working through figuring out how long certain
things are going to take to complete, but knowing my students was vital to
progressing this skill. Knowing that my 5th period class, for instance, was very vocal
and thorough engaged in discussion helped me determine what rate in which to
take the material. My 3rd period class on the other hand, was silent during
discussions. There were only two students in my class who regularly volunteered
information. My approach to teaching and engaging this class was entirely different.
Due to completing work individually on more occasions, this class used time in a
very different way than other classes. I had to learn to accommodate each type and
each group of students in order to successfully guide them to their objectives and
mastery of standards.
When I have my own classroom, there are a few things that I would do
differently. While I began teaching during my first week, which was an excellent

decision, I would start with team building and expectations. Rather than using the
same techniques and expectations as my cooperating teacher, I would have started
with instilling my own expectations. Even though I did do this at a later time, I feel
as though I missed some opportunities to enforce those as well as build earlier
relationships by not doing this first. In my own classroom, I intend to do both of
these things right away. All-in-all, I am pleased with the relationships that I have
been able to build during my student teaching experience. I knew each student on
an individual level and build connections with each one. My experience is something
I will certainly take with me into the future as an outstanding learning opportunity
and teachable memory.
My teaching philosophy as a concept has not really changed; I still want the
same things for my students, and I am still the same person I was before this
experience. There are, however, things that I would add or alter about the execution
of these beliefs. For instance, I am a firm believer in life-long learning. With middle
school aged children there are so many new and transitionary periods going on in
their lives that this is the time a lot of students lose their passion for and desire to
learn. While my philosophy is to foster a desire for life-long learning, the selfmotivated strategies that I believe in and attempt to utilize shifted somewhat this
semester. The group of students that I have were challenging in a variety of ways I
had not anticipated. It was overwhelming at times, and I found myself having to
take a step back and focus on one thing at a time. I couldnt focus on or try multiple
things and be successful. I took my knowledge of each student and individualized
techniques to engage and reignite a passion for learning. Those elements of my
philosophy remained the same, but rather than a solidly built idea of studentcentered learning, I had to modify for reality. Some of my classes simply would not
function in a student-centered environment because they have not been taught how
to manage time responsibly. This experience certainly demonstrated the importance
of establishing and consistently upholding expectations and routines.
Classroom management is still something that is evolving for me. I am calm
and confident in my instruction, which tends to work well with my students. There
are certain times where I have had to practice a variety of techniques in order to
resolve behavior issues. Lunch detention, seating chart changes, and the respectpoint system I installed have assisted me in managing the classroom. Each week,
my classes have a competition. Gaining points is negative and represents disrespect
(for me, for each other, for the classroom, or for themselves). Each time the class or
individuals shows disrespect or is continuously disruptive, a point is added to the
class total. This has worked wonders in having students be accountable for
themselves and each other. Generally peers assist in resolving issues by offering
stern warnings. They do, after all, enjoy winning. The winner of the weekly contest
gets rewarded, as does the class who wins multiple weeks in a row. This has been a
great motivational tool that allows the students to work as a collaborative
community and demonstrate a role within the classroomevery person counts.
This experience has taught me a great deal about myself as well as where I
want to be as a teacher. Upon entering my student teaching experience, I had
conflicted emotions about teaching at the high school versus middle school level. I
chose to student teach at the middle school level because that was my goal when I
went into the teaching program initially. I enjoyed the content and experience
working in the high school, but something told me to go back to the middle school

level. My first day in Walt Clarks 8th grade language arts classroom, I knew I had
made the right decision. This was my home; this was where I belonged. I had never
felt so at home in a classroom or felt such a bond with students. At the end of my
experience, I knew for certain that I wanted to remain with middle-schoolers. Even
though this can be a difficult, drama-riddled age group, the rewards are limitless.
There are so many students in crucial stages of their development and decision
making that being a person to guide and shape who they will become is an
important and humbling task. I feel as though I have made a difference with my
students as I have watched them grow and change over the course of these several
months. Knowing I have touched the lives of some of these teens has guaranteed
this experience will be memorable and rewarding.
When I see the future, I have a lot of goals in mind. I want to work in a middle
school, preferably 8th grade, teaching language arts. My goal is to continue
integrating more of the arts portion into the study of English language concepts.
This includes visual storytelling, interactive storytelling, and other 21 st century skills
that are essential to the future and lives of my students as well as allow the
opportunity for relevant engagement and connections. I enjoy integrating other
disciplines and hope in the future to create interdisciplinary projects and
assessments. My children inspire me to try new things and bring new, innovative
techniques into my classroom. I want to inspire students, and I want to reengage
their desire to learn. It is my goal to be the type of teacher that motivates students
to keep searching for answers, to explore their curiosities with healthy exploration
and discovery. Ideally, I would work in an 8 th grade classroom with a diverse group
of students who actively participate and come together as a learning community.
The safe, nurturing environment that I create will act as a haven to students where
they know they are always cared for and supported with positive encouragement. It
is my intention to acquire my Masters degree, though I have only begun to
determine what area in which to do this. I am thoroughly passionate about my
content area, but I have also thought of getting into a Gifted and Talented Education
program. I am scheduled to take a licensing exam in Social Studies, so a part of my
future professional goals is to acquire additional endorsements to my teaching
license.
Personally, I hope to continue my extensive involvement in my childrens
educational careers as well. With significant volunteer work with their school and as
a member of the Parent Teacher Committee, I thoroughly enjoy being a part of their
educational experience. Attending college while raising my small children, now a
second grader and a kindergartner, was a challenging experience. The things I
managed to do for my education while attempting to raise healthy children still
amazes me every day. I want to spend more time with my family and be able to do
more family activities while encouraging their passion for learning and
extracurriculars. My children love school and are so proud that their mom is a
teacher; they too have aspirations to enter the field of education, which simply is
one of the best compliments I may ever receive.