First I would like to start by saying that overall mt field experience was a good experience. I was able to meet some terrific young adults at the Greenwood Laboratory School on our campus, and I feel like I made a good connection with some of them. My practicum has just come to an end and I feel like I really missed out. While I had a wonderful experience at Greenwood, I am envious that some of you were able to run an entire unit with your students and were able to truly prepare for what is in store for you. I wasn't able to have this experience because my practicum teacher was a student teacher who needed nearly all of the class time to prepare himself for his career.
I don't want to seem bitter because it going to Greenwood was pretty much my only option since the staff at Parkview were not willing to contact Dr. Franklin. I just feel like I'm behind because I wasn't able to use this practicum as anything but an observational experience. It tis a shame that these circumstances were the reality of my practicum but I tried to make the best of them. Since I couldn't do a whole lot of teaching, I tried to interact with as many students as I could while trolling the room during their group work. It was here that I met some of the students and was able to build a rapport with them. I also observed a debate class which was actually one of the more amazing parts of my practicum. In this class I was able to help the students refine their debate points and prepare for competition. This class which was actually taught by a faculty member at the school, was where I felt most comfortable.
When I finally was able to teach my lesson to the 10th graders, I was excited but was trying to recover from a pretty nasty case of food poisoning. The lesson on William Blake began as a complete disaster but evolved into a fairly decent lesson invoving group work and presentations. I wish that I had the opportunity to teach this lesson again for a little self vindication but alas, I will have to wait until I have my own class and can actually see if I'm going to be any good at this teaching thing. I guess when it comes down to it the only way to train for this career is to actually do it.
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I kind of understand - my classroom also had a student teacher, from Drury, and another practicum student from SEC 302, so it was rather crowded with four teachers trying to fight over instructional time.
I was able to lead the class a lot throughout my experiences in the classroom, but never really got to create my own lessons. This was good and bad. It saved me a lot of time outside of the classroom without the planning aspect, but it also deflated my planning skills. I did get a lot of experience with the students though and made some really good connections. Overall, i feel like my experiences in the classroom were great!
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