So as we are wrapping up the end of our adventures I thought I should at least give you an update on what goes on during the week. It might look like all we are doing is traveling and having fun but our week days are full of teaching. I am having the best experience here at Lakenheath. I was a little concerned at first because I wasn't familiar with Photoshop but after a couple weeks of watching tutorials and getting my hands on the software I have started to feel much more comfortable with it.
My students have been hard at work. We have done all sorts of projects. We are mainly focusing on photo editing as opposed to design this semester. I have been very pleased with the results. I have learned a lot from my students. I have always heard teachers say you will learn a lot from your students and it is so true. Some kids are just very gifted in certain areas. With Photoshop there are about 5 different ways to make the same edit so it is cool to interact with the students and see what they have found to make editing more easy for them.
In my business class we have been working on a business plan that they were assigned before I got here. It is a year long project so we focus on a chapter and then work on their businesses plan as it corresponds with what we are learning. We have been focusing on study habits and trying to get grades up on test. I have been experimenting with what works best for this particular group of kids. I have found that they are very kinetics learners and it helps for them to have a hands on review experience. I am really enjoying that class.
My students are all good kids and I haven't had any problems with them. Each day I show a video from soulpancake and have them do a quick write over the topic of what the video was about. Sometimes the video corresponds with the lesson and other times it doesn't at all. This is just a time at the beginning of class that the students look forward to and the quick write gets them thinking and focused for the rest of the class. I really enjoy reading my students quick writes. It lets me step into their world just a little bit more to understand their thought process.
My time here has been wonderful. I have learned so much from Erica (Mrs. Jones, my cooperating teaching). She is great. I have observed hectic days of yearbook and slower days where our students are working on projects. I definitely understand what comes along with being the tech teacher now. Erica is always getting emails from other teachers asking for help with their computers. With her being the yearbook sponsor we always have people coming in and out of our room bringing things for yearbook or asking for favors. You learn to be very flexible.
Here are a couple of my students projects that we have done through our the semester. The first group of pictures are flyers for the Shakespeare Festival that the English department puts on. We corresponded with them and had a competition and the winning flyer was posted around the school to promote the festival. We also did a postcard project where the students created a postcard that they could sent back to the states to family and friends. It was one of the first projects we did. And then the last bunch of pictures are a project that we did that was called Humans of Lakenheath. If you have heard of Humans of New York then that might have caught you attention. In this segment we talked about photography and how to fill the frame with our subject and we also talked about the captions and how a couple sentences can help paint an even more detail story then what you see. The pictures turned out great. I can tell they are starting to look through the lens of a camera differently. I was very pleased with that particular project.
When I first got here I had my students create a blog. We have used this as a portfolio to keep track of their progress with their image editing. The blogs are starting to get more and more personalized and I think the students are really enjoying them. We are now working on our last project before I leave and that is a movie poster. I got this idea from Mrs. Ramsey at Meridian Tech. I observed her classroom and saw some really good posters and thought it would be a fun project for my students to show their creativity. It is cool because they have to be the star of the movie. We are fortunate enough to have a poster printer in our classroom so when they are done they will be able to take their poster home with them. I am very excited to see what they come up with.
A couple weeks ago I had a moment after a class period and I looked up and the next class coming in and I realized I absolutely love teaching. I knew I would really enjoy it but I had never felt as confident in it as I do now. Student teaching is either a make or break for a lot of people and for me it definitely proved to me that I got my degree in the right profession.
Does anyone have any particular questions for me that you would like answered about my teaching experience? If so comment below and I will try to answer them as best as I can.
My students have been hard at work. We have done all sorts of projects. We are mainly focusing on photo editing as opposed to design this semester. I have been very pleased with the results. I have learned a lot from my students. I have always heard teachers say you will learn a lot from your students and it is so true. Some kids are just very gifted in certain areas. With Photoshop there are about 5 different ways to make the same edit so it is cool to interact with the students and see what they have found to make editing more easy for them.
In my business class we have been working on a business plan that they were assigned before I got here. It is a year long project so we focus on a chapter and then work on their businesses plan as it corresponds with what we are learning. We have been focusing on study habits and trying to get grades up on test. I have been experimenting with what works best for this particular group of kids. I have found that they are very kinetics learners and it helps for them to have a hands on review experience. I am really enjoying that class.
My students are all good kids and I haven't had any problems with them. Each day I show a video from soulpancake and have them do a quick write over the topic of what the video was about. Sometimes the video corresponds with the lesson and other times it doesn't at all. This is just a time at the beginning of class that the students look forward to and the quick write gets them thinking and focused for the rest of the class. I really enjoy reading my students quick writes. It lets me step into their world just a little bit more to understand their thought process.
My time here has been wonderful. I have learned so much from Erica (Mrs. Jones, my cooperating teaching). She is great. I have observed hectic days of yearbook and slower days where our students are working on projects. I definitely understand what comes along with being the tech teacher now. Erica is always getting emails from other teachers asking for help with their computers. With her being the yearbook sponsor we always have people coming in and out of our room bringing things for yearbook or asking for favors. You learn to be very flexible.
Here are a couple of my students projects that we have done through our the semester. The first group of pictures are flyers for the Shakespeare Festival that the English department puts on. We corresponded with them and had a competition and the winning flyer was posted around the school to promote the festival. We also did a postcard project where the students created a postcard that they could sent back to the states to family and friends. It was one of the first projects we did. And then the last bunch of pictures are a project that we did that was called Humans of Lakenheath. If you have heard of Humans of New York then that might have caught you attention. In this segment we talked about photography and how to fill the frame with our subject and we also talked about the captions and how a couple sentences can help paint an even more detail story then what you see. The pictures turned out great. I can tell they are starting to look through the lens of a camera differently. I was very pleased with that particular project.
When I first got here I had my students create a blog. We have used this as a portfolio to keep track of their progress with their image editing. The blogs are starting to get more and more personalized and I think the students are really enjoying them. We are now working on our last project before I leave and that is a movie poster. I got this idea from Mrs. Ramsey at Meridian Tech. I observed her classroom and saw some really good posters and thought it would be a fun project for my students to show their creativity. It is cool because they have to be the star of the movie. We are fortunate enough to have a poster printer in our classroom so when they are done they will be able to take their poster home with them. I am very excited to see what they come up with.
A couple weeks ago I had a moment after a class period and I looked up and the next class coming in and I realized I absolutely love teaching. I knew I would really enjoy it but I had never felt as confident in it as I do now. Student teaching is either a make or break for a lot of people and for me it definitely proved to me that I got my degree in the right profession.
Does anyone have any particular questions for me that you would like answered about my teaching experience? If so comment below and I will try to answer them as best as I can.