Wow! These past 18 weeks just flew by! It seems like just yesterday I was beginning my student teaching experience and Wham! here I am today, a college graduate and a newly inducted high school English teacher.
Over the past semester, I have gone from being a hesitant observer of the teaching process, to learning how to create AWESOME lesson plans and then scrapping them and flying by the seat of my pants simply because I discovered that what I thought was utterly brilliant was in fact, ridiculous to the students. I have learned the importance of providing visual aids to assist students in the learning process and that if I assign a writing project, I better have a sample of what it is that I am expecting in return.
In addition to writing an endless amount of lesson plans and grading the never-ending flow of homework, I also took the time to attend a few professional development workshops. The most memorable workshop was the one sponsored by the high school I was working at. The building principal brought in representatives from Kagan and they trained all of the staff in ways to incorpate cooperative learning strategies and techniques into our classrooms. I am still looking for and thinking about ways I can incorporate the strategies from this PD into my future classroom!
Finally, on Friday, December 17, 2010 I graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a Bachelors degree in Education. Even now, two days after the fact, I feel like I am still in a state of disbelief. I mean, I set a goal and 5 1/2 years later, I acheived it! Not sure what I am going to do over the Christmas break with all this newly discovered "free" time, but I think I will do my best to enjoy every last minute I get to spend with my pretty amazing family! After the holidays, it will be time for me to get serious about turning in applications for a teaching position. Hopefully, I will get hired by a school district that participates in the UNO C.A.D.R.E. Project. If I can land a C.A.D.R.E. position I will be as happy as a clam!
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