Santan Junior High School is located in the Chandler School District and shares a campus

with Santan Elementary. I was a student intern in an eighth grade social studies classroom at

Santan Junior High this semester, during which time I assisted the students with in class work

and taught several lessons. For this assignment, I interviewed my mentor teacher and created a

google form survey for the students to fill out.

The students in my IMTs class are 8th graders between 12 and 13 years old. Most of

these students are white, about 7 are African-American, and several are Hispanic. The google

form survey I gave them included six questions:

1. What makes you become discouraged during a lesson?

2. What is your favorite subject and why?

3. What do you like most about learning history?

4. What do you like least about learning history and why?

5. What can I do to make my lessons more interesting?

6. What are some things that I can improve on?

Many of the students said that what made them become discouraged during a lesson was when it

was boring, uninteresting, and/or difficult to understand, when the teacher ignores their raised

hand, or makes them feel as if their ideas are stupid or wrong, or when there is an overload of

information. There were quite a few people who said that PE, language arts, and math were their

favorite subjects. There were also several students who said that history was their favorite

subject. The reasons for these particular subjects being their favorite included not having to take

tests, a love of writing, the subject was easy to understand, and the student liked learning about

the past. The first reason was most commonly given in response to PE being the favorite subject.

For questions 3 and 4, students often stated that they liked learning about the past, the World
Wars, and learning how past events related to current events. Students did not like learning

history just by reading out of a textbook, found remembering all the information to be difficult,

and disliked learning about geography. One student did remark that they didnt like learning

about old, dead guys, while another student said that learning history was a waste of time. I

found the latter response to be shocking and immediately responded by thinking of ways in

which I could change this mindset in my own classroom. In response to the last question on the

survey, the three most common responses were: speak louder, call on more students, and be more

excited. Several students also remarked that I should use more humor. Crack a joke once in a

while, one student remarked.

My mentor teacher is a middle-aged woman who has been teaching for 21 years. Her

content area is social studies, but she has also taught math and language arts. When I interviewed

my mentor teacher, I asked her five questions:

1. What are some ways in which I can improve?

2. What are some things that I do well?

3. What are some ways that I can make the material more interesting to students?

4. How do you build classroom community?

5. Do you have any advice for me going into student teaching?

My mentor teacher told me that I needed to work on getting to know students, which I could do

by asking them questions, something as simple as what did you do this weekend or asking

them about their interests. She explained that doing this helps build relationships with students

and shows them that you care about them. Another thing she mentioned that I needed to work on

was making connections between the material and students lives or current events. In response

to the second question, my IMT said that Im good at making modifications to my lessons to
meet the needs of individual students and the class, and that Im good at explaining things to the

students. In regards to making the material more interesting, my IMT told me that I could find

ways to make it more interactive and introduce a variety of activities, other than worksheets, to

help students learn the content. I agreed with this, and this was also a major suggestion that the

students had come up with. She mentioned using Kahoot and having students do a Gallery Walk

activity. In regards to building classroom community, my IMT says that she often has students

work together, which helps students become familiar with and eventually trust one another. She

also mentioned doing about me activities at the beginning of the year so that she and the

students could get to know one another. In response to the last question, my IMT suggested that I

go in before school starts to assist my mentor with setting up the classroom in order to get an

idea of how to set up the classroom and the reasons for setting up a certain way. She also

suggested looking at my mentors curriculum material and pacing guides to get an idea of what

material to teach, how to teach it, roughly how long units take to teach, and when teachers

typically begin to teach certain topics (i.e.: the War of 1812, WWI, the Vietnam War).

In my future teaching, I will use this information to help me develop better lesson plans

and build relationships with my students. Building relationships with students includes building

trust, which will help me to meet their needs and teach them effectively. If a student does not

trust the teacher, the student is less likely to want to learn from the teacher or let the teacher

know about any issues she or he is having. Developing better, more interactive lesson plans will

certainly make the learning more fun. When the learning is fun, students want to learn and,

therefore, their chances of success increase. If I make learning history fun, students will,

hopefully, not think that learning history is a waste of time. Lastly, by learning what makes this

particular group of students become discouraged during a lesson and what they dislike about
learning history, I can adjust my teaching to ensure that my students understand the material and

that I never make my students feel as if their ideas are stupid or wrong, to help my students

memorize and remember the information they need, and to find other materials I can use besides

the textbook. Doing all of these things will help my students become discouraged less and learn

the content more successfully.