I wrapped up my first three days of teacher internship. Unfortunately, I’ve entered the classroom near the end of a semester when the teacher is trying her hardest to cram in the final few topics. There just isn’t enough time in the schedule to give everything the attention it needs during the semester, and so some topics have to be stuffed in at the end as best as possible. This means there is little creativity involved. It’s all straight lectures and guided reading out of the biology book. The teacher hates doing this, but she has no other option. The last thing to be done this semester is the pig dissection and she doesn’t want to shortchange the kids on that. That’s why she is essentially forced to fly through a few other topics in a few days.
However, since I’ve already worked with this teacher on other college assignments in the past, she was familiar with me. That helped me when I asked to take over a few lectures. She had no problem with it. Lecturing and interacting with the kids is so much better than sitting in the back of the class watching the same lecture three times in a row. I watched her give a lecture with her first group of students. Since I was already familiar with the subject, that one lecture was all I needed to see. I then gave the same lecture to the remaining two groups. I fumbled a bit with one group, but once I was warmed up I think I did great with the last group.
So far this has been a positive experience. I have yet to encounter any serious behavior problems in my assigned biology class or in any of the other classrooms I’ve observed. The only thing that has been mildly irritating is some kids’ inattention. Their eyes are glazed over or they are obviously daydreaming. Others get a bit loud and start creating minor disturbances. But you can’t really blame them. The material Thursday and Friday has been delivered in a dry and rushed manner. However, on Wednesday the students did a web quest project on computers and were much more awake and into it.
There is a test on Monday. Then I think the remainder of the week is all about dissections! The pigs came in the mail today and they are really big! I’m looking forward to that.
