Two heads are better than one: My first week

By -

Although I have always felt privileged to be part of the MDTA,  I felt particularly fortunate as the children started to fill the classroom on my first day.

I began to feel nervous and questioned what I had learnt over the last few years. Did I remember how to be a teacher?  Was there a school norm regarding the children's entrance to the classroom? I had spoken to other beginning teachers that morning, and found that they shared my anxiety. 

Yet I was not alone and I took comfort in my mentors confidence. She began the day by explaining that we would be co -teaching the class and introduced herself with a letter addressed to our learners. I followed suit and gained confidence as I read. I even received a round of applause at the end of my recital, which further put my mind at ease. The remainder of the day ran smoothly and I felt that we had a successful first week. I certainly feel far less stressed than my peers outside of the MDTA!

I also feel very fortunate to have a mentor who shares similar ideas to my own. We have both been able to agree on routines, planning and pedagogy with little conflict.  Co - teaching with Amy has really highlighted the benefit of collaboration between teachers. We are able to bounce ideas off one another and create richer lesson plans because of it.  I also realise how difficult it would be to co-teach alongside an educator with a very different teaching style to my own. Although I am sure much could be learnt, I believe that relationship between teachers and their ability to collaborate has an affect on the class climate.

Overall I am pleased with our first week and feel that I have began to develop positive relationships with my learners.  I know that there are areas that I need to improve on, such as ensuring that I follow up on misbehaviour with appropriate consequences, but I feel optimistic about the year ahead. I am looking forward to developing my practice in a safe environment. I am looking forward to being able to take risks and to try new things that I would not have the confidence or opportunity to do without a mentor or being part of this programme.


Comments

  1. Dorothy12 February 2016 at 13:55

    What a fabulous start you have had Danni. I am pleased you are keeping in touch with your friends who are 'regular' BTs because this will reassure you that although your pathway is different, you are a REAL teacher :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unpacking Our Reading Journey

By -
Image
Over the past two years I have been able to track a target group of students in my literacy group. The students are all girls except for F and G but these boys left in 2018.  I wanted to track this group closely this year as they came to me with reading ages between 8 and 9, where our learners seem to get stuck. In the first year, some were able to achieve accelerated shift, while others only made 6 months. Student End 2017 End 2018 End 2019 A 8.5 9 11 B 8.5 10.5 12 C 9 10.5 13 D 9 9.5 11 E 9 10 11.5 F 8.5 10 / G 9 9.5 / I focussed on those that had made the best shift and surveyed them to see what they thought caused it. F said that he enjoyed the topics that we were reading and that he was reading more. B and C had similar answers, with my hunch being that B made so much shift due to reading more at home. In fact, I gave B an extra text every week. In 2019 I attempted to give the students texts that they would find more interesting, and for the end of term 1
Read more

Inquiry 2018

By -
As the year draws closer and I reflect on 2017, it is time to consider what aspects of my practice I wish to work on next year. This year I completed an intervention and dissertation on mathematics; specifically using differentiated approaches to accelerate the learning of all of my students in a mixed-ability setting. I learnt so much from this intervention and it has altered much of my mathematics pedagogy and use of my class site.  However, next year I would like to focus on writing, as this is another area of the curriculum that some of my learners struggle with. As I will be teaching a year 7 and 8 class, I must ensure that my teaching will support the students to transition between intermediate and high school. It is also vital that I facilitate accelerated learning so that they can cope with the literary demands of college. I would like to investigate the use of text analysis, peer and self assessment to make the connection between reading and writing explicit. In t
Read more

Top Tips for Online Learning

By -
Image
With the world in lockdown every teacher is having to make adaptations for online distance learning. To help speed your learning journey,  here are seven top tips that I've curated from the experts Harry Fletcher-Wood and Dr Nina Wood at the  Education Hub . 1. Students attention spans are going to be far shorter . We know that there are many distractions for children at home and they are definitely not dedicating six hours of their day for school work. We don't want to overload parents either - if there is too much content and they have multiple children things get very tricky. A couple of hours of learning a day is great. In fact, my 11 to 13 year old students tend to clock out after about 90 - so I make the most of them! 2. Your learning activities need to be simple. We don't have the chance to meet face to face with students, to answer questions as they arise, so our tasks need to be easily introduced and explained. It is helpful to use a similar format each we
Read more