I have just completed my seventh week out of the ten required weeks of student teaching. I have finally been able to take all of the knowledge I obtained during my courses at Quinnipiac and apply it to real life situations in my own classroom. I must admit that at first student teaching was very overwhelming. I was struggling with solidifying my objectives and making sure that every lesson had a purpose. The daily tasks during student teaching include: planning lessons, teaching lessons, handling classroom management and routines, holding extra help, and grading papers. I took over my classes at full force. I have a great cooperating teacher who helps me to plan lessons that will be most effective for each student population. My cooperating teacher and I have very similar personalities, which enables us to work well together. I teach a total of four classes (one freshmen general, two freshmen academic, and one sophomore honors). I am very lucky and have not had any behavioral issues with any of my students. I feel that I have established a respectable rapport with my students and they feel comfortable coming to me for help if they do not understand something. Most of my time is spent planning for my lessons because I want to ensure that all student needs are met and that my lessons are both engaging and effective. My second most amount of time is spent grading papers. Throughout the past seven weeks I have graded over one hundred papers.

This experience has made me realize how much work really goes on behind the scenes of teaching. It has also made me further realize that this is exactly the profession I want to go into. I enjoy every moment that I spend in the classroom and truly look forward to going to school everyday. There are definitely days when there is a struggle to think of creative lesson ideas or when I may carry out a lesson and it does not go as planned. I look at all of these struggles as learning experiences. My cooperating teacher and Quinnipiac University supervisor have both observed my teaching and their constructive criticism helps me to adapt my teaching strategies to enable students to reach a higher level of thinking. I enjoy really connecting with my students and I like to try to get them to be passionate about a particular topic. I have greatly developed my questioning skills through this experience by always trying to create ways to connect topics to student life. I have found that this further engages students because the topics seem relevant and more important.

I have also engaged myself fully at the high school. I am currently an Assistant Cheerleading Coach and spend at least two nights a week working with the cheerleaders. I also have made myself very visible and have chaperoned various school events such as Homecoming and the Winter Carnival. I am immersed in the climate of my school and have established professional relationships with many of my coworkers. These relationships are very helpful, especially to me as a new teacher, because I do not feel afraid when I need help because I do not know how to do something. Although the workload is intense and there are many Friday nights where I would rather just stay in and sleep, my student teaching experience has been educational and enjoyable. I am going to miss it once it is over!

-Arielle Fischer MAT 2012