EDSE Practicum Teaching

 I taught my first high school level lesson this week and I feel it could have gone much better. I had never had a class that last 90 minutes before so I was woefully underprepared for the task that would become teaching for that length of time. This was my first mistake thinking I could or would even want to lecture for this long and I should have broken this up with a discussion or an activity. But this experience has given me very useful information on how I can better prepare my future lessons and how I can break up the long class period with activities or group work.

 My first full week in a classroom of high school students has been a bit of a shock. On one hand I had expected my students to be much more mature but what I was met with was not much different than my experience with middle schoolers. Its a strange adjustment I think I am still feeling as it was only a few years ago I was also in high school and now 4 years later I'm standing up front teaching a lesson. But it felt as if these high schoolers, who aren't much younger than myself, were the same as middle schoolers just a room full of kids and I think it was a moment of realization to look at how much I have grown and changed since then. 

I feel having the observations this week allowed me to get the introductions and formalities out of the way so I can start getting more engaged next week. However, I feel the community inventory provided a bit more insight and an explanation of what kind of school I am going to be and what I should expect especially since this is an entirely different environment than I'm used to with the school being much larger than any school I have attended or taught at. Overall I feel this week went well and I already have begun planning a lesson for my classes.