Week 14- Last Day

 Yasmine Mustafa

5-2-2021

It is a bittersweet feeling that we are now at the end. It is so crazy to think that not to long ago we were worried that we would not be meeting the students. I was super nervous in the beginning thinking that we were going to have to be in person while teaching remotely too. I have learned so much and I am truly grateful for the opportunity that was given to us.  

Going into field experience I would say a strength of mine was being confident around students. I have worked with children ages 3-6 for about 4 years. I felt that this helped build my confidence a lot. It helped me both online and in the classroom. A strength I gained now is teaching hybrid and in person. I honestly never thought I would be put in a situation like this but, I am glad I was. It taught me so much. I am also not that great with technology but, I feel that now I learned a lot that I can bring into my future classroom.

Overall, I feel that I improved a lot on my teachings. In the beginning, when I taught my first lesson I did not do so great, now that I have taught my last lesson I got a 100%!! I definitely felt the improvement teaching my last lesson. Given all the feed back, previous lessons, etc., it truly did make an impact on my overall improvement. Another area I would say I improved on is actually engaging both virtual and in person students. I feel that in the beginning I kind of just focused on the virtual students since I only had three students in person. As the term went along I saw my self just naturally including and engaging with both in person and virtual students. 

Two areas that I think I need to work on still is my pace and time. When it comes to my pace I feel that I go super fast teaching my lessons because I always feel like I am going to run out of time. Doing this it makes me forget to include parts of my lessons and not engage students entirely the way I anticipate. It is something that I am continuously working on. Time and pace is very important because it literally can make all the difference in student's comprehension and overall learning. 

• Most Fun experience: Getting to create break out rooms and read with different students of different levels
• Most challenging: Dealing with technology 

The best lesson I taught I feel was my second whole group literacy lesson. I was able to make it a literacy lesson all while focusing on earth day as well. I read a Dr. Seuss book that the students enjoyed so much. I was able to ask higher order thinking questions. Lastly, the students were able to create persuasive letters and read them out loud. They were so excited to read their out loud, I absolutely loved it.

I feel my worst lesson was my Social Studies lesson. It was one of the very first lessons I taught while we were still remote. I was still adjusting to google classroom and a lot of my interactive activities were not working for the students and I felt myself immediately loose confidence. I let minor inconveniences affect my entire lesson. I did learn from my mistakes and improved throughout lessons.

3 Things Learned From CT:

• Not everything goes as planned/ always have a plan B
• Different classroom strategies that help when teaching hybrid
• Never show that you lost your confidence it affects both you and the students. Keep pushing

3 Things Learned About Myself:

• I am capable of way more then I think
• I have a passion for learning new things everyday
• I do a great job and I am in the right field 

3 Things Learned about the education field: 

• New things pop up everyday
• Not everything goes as planned
• There will be bad days

What I wish I done differently, I would say honestly getting to know my MT more from the beginning. We grew such a great bond towards the end of the semester that I wish we would have started sooner. She truly is such a great Mentor and has taught me so much that I will take on. 

I am super excited to start student teaching! I am excited to meet my CT and the new students I will be working with! I am also excited to set up the classroom and make it feel like my very own!

I am most anxious about being in a Kindergarten classroom. I really enjoyed my second graders but, I know that it will be such a great experience! 

One of my favorite pages from the book my MT and students created for me!