Are we there yet?

I find myself asking this question time and time again? When will part-time student teaching end? I'm so confused. For a few hours, I'm expected to be a student teacher with tons of cute pre-teens. And a few hours later, I'm expected to be in a room full of twenty-something year old student teachers, in a classroom, and with a professor. VERY STRANGE! Yes, I am almost there.

As I journey on from week to week, I am finding it harder and harder to leave the parking lot of CCMMS and return to my classes. I just want to stay and be with my students all day long. Is that too much to ask for? Well, I get to do that in 6 days! I'm so excited that I can barely keep my composure at times. This week I got the opportunity to do some pretty interesting things that made student teaching a little bit more real to me. I participated in my first full staff meeting (with free yummy lunch!), learned how to enter PEPs on EasyPEP, played Apples to Apples with my students, assisted my students with Analogy presentations, learned how to use the media center copy machine, assisted my students with Science Fair reflections and articles, and visited West Millbrook Middle School.

Something I thought that was good was attending the full staff meeting. I was given the opportunity to see all of the faculty and staff of CCMMS. I was also introduced to the BT Coordinator, who will be contacting me to sit in on a few BT meetings. During the full staff meeting, I also received a tutorial on how to enter PEP plans into EasyPEP software. I also was given a presentation on the new Teacher Evaluation Assessment instrument. It was great for me to see it actually put into plan because I only had experience with it from class lectures.

Something that I think I need a little more clarification on is the purpose of the EasyPEP software. If teachers were just keeping track of PEP plans by manuscript, why have they moved to the software? A lot of the steps involved in using the software also seem a little time-consuming and pointless.

I believe that the learning context of the community and my classroom will affect my instruction and assessment greatly. CCMMS operates under a strong university connections and leadership magnet program. Service-learning is also a very big component of the school's culture. A majority of my students are also visual learners. I know this will become one of my daily goals to include all students' learning preferences in my classroom. I will also have to address many opportunities for leadership and service-learning within the curriculum. There are also several volunteers and tutors who stop in from time to time. I also realize that it will become my partial responsibility to plan activities for them to work on with the students to make the more effective. Planning for my students may become a little complex; but I'm up for the challenge