Student Teaching Weekly Log

Directions: Answer these questions each week and email them to your student teaching supervisor by Sunday evening.

Name: Megan Crossett Week: 5

1. How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?a. My responsibilities this week were identical to those of last week. I taught the

morning meeting and the entirety of the literacy block with the exception of the core lesson. I spent a lot of time after school this week planning my lessons for the coming week, as I will be taking over the entire literacy block, as well as science and social studies. A lot of my time was consumed by learning how to plan small group lessons so that they are aligned to FAST progress monitoring. So far, I don’t like FAST. It seems like a lot of extra work for teachers, in the form of weekly progress monitoring with no real benefit to students, because over half of my students were flagged as discrepant, they get pulled for intervention for a half an hour each day and/or are placed in a group that is chosen based on ability level for small group instruction. I like small group, but I also like the idea of being able to have flexible grouping because sooner or later students figure out that they’re in the low or high group and I feel that realization impacts how they view themselves as learners. A good chunk of my time this week was also spent in international baccalaureate (IB) meetings and mock interviews as my school prepares for their review. The IB standards are tough to meet and that has added a lot of stress for staff school-wide, because they want to pass inspection. The interviewing process was with a panel and a little intense, but I’m glad I got to sit in and hear their questions because I will be teaching bell to bell when the actual IB committee comes in to review the school and interview teachers.

2. What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging experiences?

a. My most satisfying experience this week was sitting in on P’s IEP review meeting. I got to meet his mother and was able to speak with the specialists in the school that I’m beginning to know better, such as the speech pathologist, social worker, and lead interventionist. Right now, there has been a lot of drama with P’s associate and keeping her in our classroom to assist him. I’ve learned that with each positive growth marker he reaches, P is eligible for less and less assistance from his associate. He is doing fantastically, because he has the support of his associate, and we’ve noticed that he’s taken a few steps back as she’s been pulled way more. I was able to jump in and provide input on what sort of accommodations we make for P in the classroom, where my mentor (who was put on the spot) was drawing a blank. I hope that the accommodations I brought up will allow P to keep his minutes with his associate…otherwise; I’m worried he’ll fail to be successful in the gen ed. classroom environment.

b. My most challenging experience was teaching while the smart board was being worked on. Our board has not been working interactively all year and someone from the district finally came in in the middle of my writing lesson…that required use of the ELMO and board. I was able to “roll with the punches” so to speak, but my ad-libbed lesson was not as good as what I had originally planned, which made me feel bad for the students. The next time I’m put in that situation, I need

to remember that less is more and that 6 year olds can talk about writing one sentence for more than 15 minutes.

3. What are the plans for the upcoming week?a. This coming week, it is our buffer week in between units. I have gotten to plan

everything for this week, aside from math. We will be working on reviewing everything we’ve learned thus far, using Halloween and autumn themed resources. I’m very excited to see my lessons go into play, as I haven’t really had much freedom to do so yet. It was validating to have my plans approved by my mentor and I hope that my deliveries of the lessons are also up to par. At this point, though, I’m feeling pretty good about everything.