I have always enjoyed journaling. From ages 9-20 I wrote in a journal frequently. But, journaling is something that I had gotten away from in the years since then. So, I was pleased to learn that as part of my fall student teaching experience for the MAT program I would be expected to keep a journal in which I would reflect on my teaching experiences. I think that, for me, this reflective journaling exercise proved to be one of the most useful assignments of the program. Pouring back over these records of my teaching experiences, and in doing so reliving my successes, frustrations and thoughts on the teaching profession, is really fascinating to me.
It is interesting to observe trends in my journal entries over the course of the fall semester. For example, I notice that in my reflections from the first few weeks of classes, I am very focused on my feelings regarding how I am presenting material and coming across as a teacher. In these entries I discuss my fears about contacting parents (something that my mentor requested I do during the first week of school), and my frustrations about lectures that appeared to be boring my students. I also discuss the times when my presentation of material seems to go very well. I see that throughout these first few weeks, although I do make notes about how certain students are responding to lessons, I am very focused on my feelings about how I must appear to the class and my lack of confidence about how to respond when my lessons don’t go as planned.
As the semester progresses, my journal entries start to focus less on my feelings about how I am presenting material, and more on how my students respond to lessons and the level of understanding they display for various assessments. One thing that I start to focus on in a lot of my journal entries is the issue of student motivation. Finding ways to motivate students to actually review the material that we covered in class was a major challenge. I began trying new strategies to help students review material prior to tests. For example, I experimented with having students write study questions as a homework assignment and then incorporating their questions into in-class review time. In October, I also started offering lunchtime review sessions (with brownies as bribes) prior to tests.
My journal entries from this time period also start to focus more on the progress of individual students and how to help them succeed. For example, I discuss one student who did much better in the DNA unit after attending a session of Saturday Academy and getting individualized attention from both me and my mentor. I also ponder what to do about a student who does well on tests but is unmotivated about completing homework assignments. I discuss his excitement about our strawberry DNA extraction lab, and how I gave him instructions on how to extract DNA from other fruits at home, in the hopes that doing so would get him to feel more enthusiastic about class. I also discuss the many challenging behavioral issues presented by a number of my students.
Something else that I start to notice in my later journal entries is a good deal of reflection on strategies for dealing with lessons that don’t go as planned. While at the beginning of the semester my journal entries mostly expressed frustration over lessons not working as expected, in later entries I demonstrate a greater ability to “think on my feet” and modify lessons as I am teaching them. These journal entries also mention ways in which I was able to modify lessons for 4th period based on how they had gone during 2nd period (both sections of standard biology).
For most of the fall semester, my mentor and I team-taught our classes, with both of us actively involved in each class session. So, for the few times when I was on my own for an entire period, my journal is full of reflections on the challenges of doing everything in a class – teaching, dealing with behavioral issues, collecting homework, etc… In these journal entries, I spend a lot of time talking about the careful planning I am doing before class so that I won’t forget to do certain things when the period begins and my thoughts must be directed in multiple directions at once.
Reading these entries makes me realize how far I have come in terms of my development as a teacher. By mid-December I felt pretty competent as I taught the entire plant biology unit basically on my own. Then, in the spring, my second semester mentor let me teach ESL earth science on my own from day one. During my first semester student teaching I wouldn’t have felt prepared to totally take over a class. But, I learned so much over the course of that semester that by the time second semester came along I was excited by the new challenge of teaching solo almost every day.
I know that, despite the tremendous amount I have learned during seven months of student teaching, I still have much more to learn about how to effectively teach and manage a classroom. During the coming years, I hope to continue to make use of reflective journaling as a way to help me learn from my experiences and track my growth as a teacher.