We walked into the classroom on monday and our cooperating teacher, Mr. S, told us that we would be teaching part of the lesson today. I talked for 5 minutes on muscle strength vs. muscle endurance. Even though the topic was fairly straightforward, I felt a little nervous as it was my first time in front of a real class and I felt a little unprepared to be teaching them the information. However, I am excited that we are getting this experience as I learn by doing things as I’m sure many of my students will also.
When I was talking in the class, students were not really paying attention to what I was saying. This relates back to classroom management skills that we have spent much time on during the semester so far. I did not feel completely comfortable reprimanding students for talking so I just allowed them to continue. Classroom management skills are clearly a very important part of teaching as if your students aren’t really listening to you, they are not going to understand the information that you are teaching when they are tested later on. I have noticed in my class that our cooperating teacher spends a lot of time on just one chapter in the textbook that has roughly 5 main concepts that students need to learn. These concepts are not difficult and I feel that he is simply repeating himself day after day, I think the main reason for this is that his class is not really listening to him. Also, I think if he gave an oral review and asked the class if they understood the material, he would be able to move on and could spend more time in the gym with the students, teaching them how to live a healthy way of life and putting the concepts into practice.
Having a structured lesson plan is necessary in order to be an affective teacher. It is very difficult to teach when you do not have any sort of structure or idea of how to effectively explain the message you want to convey. Also, periodically testing stduents, even if it is not for a grade is important because you (as a teacher) need to know if your students are understanding the concepts you are teaching them. If they do understand, you assess them, and they ace the test, then you can move on. As teacher, we only get 180 days with the students so by moving through topics at a good pace, students will be more prepared for next year.
