ffiMIAMI

School

IffiI UNIVERSITY
Student RichardJefferson

STUDENT TEACHING PERFORMAI\CE FINAL REPORT

Semester/Year

Sprine 2011

District

Southwest Local

Building
Signature Signature

Cooperating Teacher Camie Hursh

MiamiUniversitySupervi5ol Don

Jostworth

Please provide a description of the student teachels performance, including skengths and recommendations for growth.

can be taught, but comes intuitively. Methods and curriculum classes can teach the uwhat" to teach, but the "how" really has to come from inside the individual teacher. How to interest the students, how to meet 25 individual needs on any given day, how to gauge each child's understanding, how to go with the flow of a lesson and change it when needed, is something that typically takes years and years to develop. The greatest asset I see in Richard Jefferson is that he is already an intuitive teacher. It is as if he is meant to do this profession.

A truly excellent teacher is not something that

a teacher needs

Within the first week of working with Richard, I could tell he was going to be a very skong student teacher. He arrived on time, or early, everyday, looking very professional and with an incredibly positive attitude. He listened carefirlly to my description of our classroom routine, management system, and lesson plan organization. He had all 45 students names memorized by the second day and every child
was very receptive to his personality.

By the second week, Richard was ready to begin co-teaching science. We planned the week's lessons together. Richard created the same lesson plan format I use on his own computer, enabling himselfto create his own plans. While planning, Richard had some fantastic ideas on how to incorporate technology into the lessons using an interactive Mimio game. I taught the lesson with the morning class while Richard watched, listened, and assisted where needed. Richard led the same lesson with the afternoon class, modeling what he had seen in the morning. I was really impressed with his attention to detail and self-assurance. He remembered specific wording and exact teaching methods I used. He seemed very comfortable with the students. It felt like he was having a lot of fun, as were the students. During his third week of student teaching, Richard began teaching both science classes. We would still plan together, but Richard was responsible for the bulk of the teaching while I walked around assisting students when needed. His lessons were engaging and tied to the pre and post assessments he created. He conducted demonstrations, hands-on experiments, and continued to incorporate interactive technology. He graded papers for the week, entered them in the online Progress Book, and was responsible for the science content in our weekly newsletter. This process continued for the duration of his student teaching. Although Richard's concentration is in science, he planned and taught reading and language arts as well. This format followed what I described above, where Richard would watch and listen as I taught the lesson in the morning, then he would repeat the lesson with the aftemoon class. Again, Richard integrated technolory into the curriculum. To help introduce 6 historical fiction books for "Book Clubs"o Richard created a colorful powerpoint presentation showing the cover of each book, photos of the setting, and photos showing important historical events found in each book. This presentation was engaging and really generated student interest. After the presentation, students wrote their top three choices and this information was used to compile each "Book Club" group. Richard also ran the Read Naturally reading intervention program while I compiled reading fluency datafor individual students. Read Naturally is computer-based, but requires a teacher to monitor reading fluency and comprehension.
Richard's strong work-ethic and community involvement carried over outside the classroom setting as well. He attended two nights of parent teacher conferences, where he was extremely polite and professional, adding in comments whenever he saw fit. He also attended an IEP meeting, where he saw first hand how goals are planned with a team of teachers and parents. He taught me how to create an online survey, through "Survey Monkey" to assess the staffs technology needs. He attended "Crosby Night" at the high school basketball game to cheer on a group of ow fourth graders who wore performing during a halftime show. The fourth graders thought it was really special to see their student teacher there cheering them on.

In conclusion, I believe Richard Jefferson will be a fantastically valuable addition to the teaching profession. He takes this job very seriously, and understands its importance, yet he remembers how to have fun too. He will be an "agent of change" in any school that is lucky enough to hire him, and his students will love being in his classroom.