Reflective Essay 1
My students teaching experience within the first month
The first month being in this school has been kind of rocky, the students programs were continuously changing. This went on for about two weeks, making it difficult to teach and keep everyone on the same page. When things smoothed out a bit, I was annoyed because I had to teach the same thing about five times. At this point, I was not comfortable teaching the senior class because they were not responsive when I gave instruction. So my mentor agreed that she would teach the seniors and I taught the junior course. She read my body language and started giving me feedback. This changed the way I interacted with the students and even the way they responded to the information in the course. I even realized that I needed to revise some of the course work in order to implement instruction.
Attitudes of School Personnel
The mentors that I have been paired with are very welcoming. They were happy that I am here, also that I am able to gain experience from their teaching styles. Since this was my home school the staff within the building just recognized me as a familiar face. Some presume that I am visiting, others know my role; as an SVA. I believe starting at the beginning of the term was beneficial because the students were resetting goals, taking work from the prior term home, changing seats, etc.. me being in the classroom was along the lines of the changes they were encountering.
School Climate
I graduated from William H Maxwell, there were always a select group of students in each major that stepped outside of the respect barrier and didn’t want to hear anything anyone said. But being back now, the atmosphere of the school keeps you open to serendipities. Based on my experience the students attend the courses they feel like on that particular day. Some students share great relationships with particular teachers. Other teachers get cursed at or totally ignored. I found it to be a bit much when I overheard a student yelling at the assistant principal, demanding her to not speak or even when I smelled marijuana in the hallways on various occasions.
Significant Events
One instance I asked a student how she was doing and she responded that she “felt dead inside”, I didn’t know how to respond, so I asked her to explain what she meant. I did not report this to my mentor right away because the class was doing their independent study and I found it inappropriate at that moment. I did address this as soon as the class period was over and my mentor explained that she suffers with severe depression and it is being handled with her guidance counselor. The second encounter was addressing a students hygiene; I asked my mentor how she would go about addressing the issue. It so happened that this particular student spoke about another student’s hygiene and my mentor said she would use the student she spoke about as an example to address the issue, so that she does not come off as rude or harmful to the students emotions.
Description of lessons taught
I provide instruction for the unit on chemical texture services; this is the most difficult course in the cosmetology outline. There are lots of unheard terms and parts of the hair students didn’t even think existed. Trying to make it relatable and fun is the most interesting part. We started our course by reviewing the history of chemical texture services and students created a timeline. For the first two lessons my mentor had to jump in and clarify some things for the students because my explanations were flying right over their heads. I found that being more active and using myself for my demonstrations help a lot. One week we broke down the components of the hair and how it allows chemicals to be processed. As we studied this information, we were able to connect the technical names of the hair using individual printouts of the presentation. Then moved onto a project which showed the bonds which created the hair shaft, using candy to represent each component. Of Course the students loved this because they got to eat candy after and snuck a few pieces during.
Pre & Post Assessments
For each lesson taught, the pre-assessment is drafted based on the information taught the day prior or from the homework given at the beginning of the week. For example on the third day, the pre assessment required students to only name the three bonds that should be present in the hair shaft. The post assessment was to list and define the three types of bonds that existed.
Evidence that Students Learned
Based on the post assessment, it is proven that students learned what was expected because the data expressed the class average to be a B+ (90-87%). The average grade between the pre assessment and post assessment was 16.4%. The class average for the pre assessment was 70.6% and the average for the post assessment was 83%.
Lessons learned from experience
I’ve learned that in order to make any type of impact in a classroom, you have to put every part of yourself in the instruction. The ability to connect and communicate with students is the most vital part of teaching. Also being able to reach all students in the way they can interpret.
