In Response to Week 6&7-- Teaching My First Class

Hi Sarah:  Sorry for not replying earlier. It was great to hear about your first lesson. It sounds like it went really well, so well-done! It gets easier and easier ... It helps a lot to have a supportive associate teacher and to get feedback from her. I'm curious to know what she said to you, and if that has helped with your subsequent teaching. It must have felt fantastic to have got that out of the way.

Have you started the Physics unit yet, or will that be on Monday?. What are you planning for that unit? There are a ton of great POEs and activities you can do with optics (and I hope to do some in our class, e.g. how much of yourself do you see in a mirror, what happens when you walk towards or away from a mirror, image formation with lenses)

That's great that the teacher is going to use the play-dough activity/lesson (yep, it was Brittany and Mary)-- you could ask Brittany and Mary if they're okay with him using their lesson (I'm sure they would be). I think it's so important that we teachers share our ideas-- teaching is so much better when it's done collaboratively and not in isolation. So, very cool.

Thanks for your answers to my questions about misconceptions and confidence. I'm glad doing and seeing the presentation helped you with your own misconceptions. Even if you knew of the misconceptions, it probably helped to see some ways to address them. And interesting comments about confidence-- yes, teaching in front of your peers, and with a partner, is different than teaching a class-- they are not the same thing. Teaching to children is certainly the best way to build your confidence.

I'll look forward to hearing how things went with the optics unit, and your overall thoughts after this week. All the best!

Terry