Week 9

This was my last week of student teaching. I feel better that I have all of my video recording done as well as the video that I needed for my spotlight video. It was a bittersweet week for me because I am going to really miss all of the staff and the students, but at the same time I am ready for a change and excited about being in a general education classroom for the first time. I am excited to meet my new students and get a new perspective in student teaching. My cooperating teacher has done an amazing job at helping me along the way and teaching me so much. She gave me the opportunity to attend two IEP meetings as well as give part of the report for a meeting to give me some experience and allow me to learn how to talk to the parents as well as in the meeting. I am also so grateful for all of the staff in the classroom that I worked with. My biggest fear going into student teaching was not having staff that I would get along with as well as have TA's that would not be welcoming, but I could have never asked for a better classroom to be a part of. The biggest challenge this week was behaviors that we had to deal with in the classroom. I think this week I was most frustrated with the lack of behavior support that was in the classroom. According to the administration there was enough staff in the classroom looking at the number of children, but not based on need. This past week we have also had a new staff begin in the classroom which was also a challenge to try and deal with all of the behaviors as well as take time to teach this new TA all of the routines and interventions to follow in the classroom. Her first language is not English which also made it difficult to be able to communicate back and forth with each other.

      I have learned a lot from my cooperating teacher throughout my experience. My cooperating teacher has a lot of responsibility on her plate and this was the first time that I was able to see all of the work that takes being a special education teacher. I think I learned a lot about classroom management as well as how to work with TAs in the classroom. The teacher I worked with had a great relationship with all of the TAs and it was something that I admired about her most. This week I learned a lot about time management with all of the IEP writing and new goals that we had to make into data sheets to begin working on in the classroom. 

      I hope to learn more about how to write IEPs since I will have the opportunity to attend and IEP meeting as well as be able to run some of the second IEP meeting this past week. This coming week I will be in my new classroom and have to meet new students again and be able to begin forming that relationship with them. The standard this aligns with is: 

SL.K.1.b Continue a conversation through multiple exchanges.