Fall Break:)

Well it's about the middle of the semester at this point and it's hard to believe that in two months or so we'll be off on Christmas break! I feel like there are still so many assignments and projects to be completed, and it's strange to think once the first of the year rolls around, we'll already be half-way done with the MAC program. Wow! Anyways, I'd also like to note that I cannot think of a better time for Fall Break. I never thought I'd be so excited to have a couple days off of school to do homework! It really will be so helpful though to have a few extra days to get ahead and work on some of the upcoming projects. Hopefully we can all also get a little bit of rest and enjoy this time of year.

By now I think that many of us have observed other classrooms and teachers, and personally it has been a really neat experience for me. I have observed two classes so far, Communications and an upper level English class, and have enjoyed being able to watch the students and the teacher interact with each other. It's also really useful to see a variety of techniques for classroom management, presenting lessons, dealing with disruptive students etc. I'm also looking forward to observing a former MACer at Pioneer who was actually my mentor's student teacher about 7 seven years ago, which is pretty cool. She is teaching French and I'm excited to see what kind of methods she uses in her classroom. I think that it's a really good idea to explore these resources right now because we have the time and the encouragement to do this, which isn't always the case. Before long we'll be student teaching full-time and any additional ideas or advice that I can take in right now will certainly be useful come Winter! At the moment, though, I'm just enjoying my placement, getting to know my students better, and trying to focus on building my confidence in the classroom!

I <3 French:)

So it's been about a month since our placement began, and I have to say that I'm really enjoying being in the classroom each week. It's a lot of fun to interact with my mentor and the students and involve myself in their lessons. It's been very interesting to observe the different behaviors of my students and my mentor as they work through a lesson or activity. I have noted several good techniques of classroom management that my mentor has used and also the creative ways in which she engages the students. While I know that it's going to be a lot of work in the winter, I'm really looking forward to planning lessons and carrying them out. I am seeing that I can finally apply some of the ideas/concepts/theories we've learned in class to the classroom. However, I wish that I could be spending more of my time concentrating on being at my placement and developing activities that could be used in the winter. This semester so far has been absolutely crammed with work, and it makes me frustrated sometimes when I want to be focusing more on my classroom. There is so much to do in terms of reading, projects, assignments, and simply attending class each night etc. I struggle with knowing that I'm not able to give as much focus to some of the Ed classes as I'd like to because of the serious workload. I know that everyone else is in the same situation, but I guess I'd be interested to know how they're juggling everything?