What do you anticipate will be the hardest part about
teaching our lessons virtually and being observed by our supervisor
this semester? What are you doing to get yourself ready for this
challenge? How are you preparing? Are you going to teach small
groups of students or are you expected to teach the entire class?
I think the hardest part about teaching our lessons virtually and being observed by our supervisors will be how to carry out the lesson with the students over the computer. For me, being in a Kindergarten class, it is already difficult since the class I am in watches pre-recorded lessons and only meets live with the teacher for attendance and to show work completed from the lessons. For me, I would have to pre-record my lesson in order for the students and my supervisor to watch. For me, I am being asked to pre-record 2 of my lessons and then live-teach my other 2 lessons when the students return to school (October 19th). I am preparing by working mainly with my cooperating teacher in deciding what would be best to teach and gathering those materials. I am supposed to teach my first "live" lesson over zoom this Friday, where I will be doing a read aloud on kindness and accepting others, a character development lesson.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm actually not allowed to teach virtually in my district, so I will be teaching to small groups in person. There are only about 3 students in one group and 4 in another. I think that this will be easier for me, but I feel there is more a challenge presented on my cooperating teacher. What I teach as a small group will have to be reiterated to those online because I'm not able to interact with them too much virtually (I'll be checking up on this if they decide to go full virtual). I've been thankful to be given a small group, but also to be able to interact with at least seven of them on a daily basis (sort of). Though I suppose my biggest challenge is fitting the material within a certain window because their periods are shorter and students feel left out compared to their friends who are virtual. They're more focused on their friends so a significant time will be dedicated to refocusing them. One of my challenges right now is that I don't know the students too well. I started fairly late and there are some unexpected pop ups that are preventing me from knowing the students fully like a classroom provides. It's hard for me to get to know the students when they: 1. don't all fit on my screen (27 kids), 2. some don't participate, 3. the class moves at a rapid pace that I don't see much student interaction with each other but also with the teacher because she's forced to interact with one at a time. Virtual learning doesn't allow multiple interaction because hearing through a screen is different (overlapping voices, feedback and background noises) compared to in person where I'm easily able to hear multiple people at once.
ReplyDeleteAs of right now the district I am in is all virtual, however my cooperating teacher informed me that they are planning on doing a hybrid A and B schedule. I am looking forward to the opportunity of actually going into the school! I was a little discouraged being online because of how difficult it is to connect with students virtually. I believe this is the biggest challenge we all have as we move forward with student teaching. I feel that are students are not going to know us as well as they could have if we were in-person at the start of the year. This really is not our faults, but it does make our jobs more difficult. My cooperating teacher and I have started planning how I am delivering instruction. When we do go hybrid she wants me to focus on teaching the in-person students and not worry too much about the students that are virtual. Additionally, she says she will work out scenarios where I can begin teaching small groups or even just one-on-one. This week I am going to help my cooperating teacher give out math pre-assessments virtually, the biggest challenge with this is having parents help their child during the test. My cooperating teacher has asked parents/guardians to set up an area where it is quiet and the student is alone. However, from what I have observed today a lot of parents are in the room with the child. It puts pressure on the child to answer correctly and some parents even gave their child the answers. My cooperating teacher tried to limit this from happening by explaining that this is just a pre-assessment and students have not been taught this content. Nevertheless, I am still remaining positive and eager to learn the ropes!
ReplyDeleteEdith Ries for Dennis Martin
ReplyDeleteI sense as though the hardest part for me about teaching our lessons virtually and being observed by our supervisors this semester are two things. Firstly, that right now my cooperating teacher has not started the social studies curriculum for our students, leaving me right now to teach a science lesson for my first supervised lesson. Also, my cooperating teacher and I teach four groups of six students each in 50 minute meetings. For now until we have a confirmed plan for the second marking period, any lesson for any subject is cut to only 20 minutes. How do we present our best selves as educators to our supervisors in 20 minute lessons that still need to address everything with edTPA requirements? I am figuring that out slowly. Luckily, I am in a position where I already have the dates of my lesson presentations figured out, with also a resourceful cooperating teacher, willing and able to make time for me to go over material and rehearse lessons. I also recently taught my supervisor how to use WebEx so that she can observe me teach the small groups.
The district I am in is doing a hybrid schedule. Half the class comes in person for one week, while the other half of the class is online and then the following week they switch. Last week I taught my first lesson. I only taught it to the students who were in person, which was about seven students. This was because there was no scheduled google meet during the time of my lesson. This made it much easier because I did not have to go back and forth and try to talk to both of the groups of students at the same time. The hardest part of my lesson though was recording it while I was teaching because my supervisor cannot come in person to observe me. I had to set up my phone in a spot in the room that it would just record me and not the students. I also had to make sure that it could pick up what the students were saying. It ended up working out fine and my supervisor was able to watch it and he heard everything throughout the lesson. The next lesson I am teaching though is going to be a lot harder because I am going to be teaching to both groups of students at the same time. I also am going need to find an activity that they can both do.
ReplyDeleteThe school that I am currently in is fully virtual so unfortunately I won't have the chance to teach them in person. I have been doing mini lessons with my class so I don't really feel nervous about teaching them. I think one challenge would be since it is hard to keep them all concentrated I feel that I would constantly have to call the students out and not have enough time to complete my lesson. My cooperating teacher wants me to do a social studies lesson with them even though they have barely been doing anything with social studies at this point. I will have to record myself doing the lesson and then send it to my supervisor. I know that I will be working with my cooperating teacher to prepare for the lessons and making sure I am prepared as much as possible. I am still trying to figure out how the recording will go. My cooperating teacher hasn't done much with small groups so I do feel that my lesson will be teaching the entire class. I have done some small math lessons and I did an activity last week with them for week of respect so I do feel that they are getting used to me teaching them.
ReplyDeleteIn the district I am in right now they are hybrid. The students who choose to come in person are there Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday with virtual Wednesdays for cleaning. In my class there is 10 students in person and 5 virtual. I have been observing how my cooperating teacher goes about it and I think she has a great grip. She has her computer with her at all times during the lessons so she can see her virtual students as well as her in class students. For me, it is a bit frightening to think about teaching this way because I have barely taught to a regular classroom so now adding students that are online is a challenge. I am expected to teach the entire class online and virtual during my observed lessons but to prepare I am trying to observe my cooperating teacher as much as possible and ask her necessary questions. My supervisor will also be observing me virtual which is interesting, I do not know how I feel about this. I'm thinking it might be better not having her sitting directly in the room at least for my first lesson or so because that is added stress. But I think this whole situation is interesting and it will help us all grow as future teachers.
ReplyDeleteJessica Kellenbach: I think that the biggest thing that will challenge us. this semester while being observed virtually is technology. This is because as we all know, technology does not always work in everyones favor. With that being said, in a classroom setting when technology does not work it is easy to just do something hands on instead but since we are virtual, that is not an option. I kind of feel as though there are sometimes things that happen that are out of our hands and this is one of them. When I teach my lessons I just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best that everything on technologys side goes smoothly. I am preparing for this by having the worksheets for my lessons saved as PDFS so I could always present my screen and have children write the problems incase theirs do not load on google-classroom.
ReplyDeleteJessica Kellenbach
ReplyDeleteKayla Sanderson : I think the most difficult part of being observed virtually is feeling confident in front of a computer screen. I think it is very difficult to really convey what you are trying to say and teach across a screen rather than in person instruction. I prepared by talking to my supervisor ahead of time and really taking advise from my cooperating teacher.
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