Winter Term - Week 8

Wow. I cannot believe it is already EdTPA week. My student teaching experience has sure flown by and is not slowing down any time soon.

First day of EdTPA Week:

I felt my lesson overall went really well and smooth. I could have used a couple extra minutes at the end of class as I didn’t quite make it back to my objectives. I did have a summary/review with my students and we got through all of the PowerPoint and activity. I think I might have scared the kids a little too much about the camera being on and how important this week is for me as they were much quieter and less chatty than normal. There were 2 students absent from class which may or may not have had an effect on the dynamics of the class. I guess we will see tomorrow. I did have good conversations and good answers throughout the lesson. Everyone seemed to be paying attention and focused. I was frustrated with my video camera though. Last week during my trial run, I had set the camera to the MP4 format, thinking this is awesome! I won’t have to convert it later! Well the video was automatically cut into 2 different segments. I thought I had it fixed before class, but unfortunately while reviewing the video, it also split into 2 different segments. And now I will have to convert that file later on. Having the two different segments is not the end of the world, however if I wanted to use that ten minute segment where it automatically broke itself up, then I wouldn’t be able to use it.

 
Fourth day of EdTPA Week:
Thursday my goal was to focus on my lesson and keeping it simple. All this week I have felt overwhelmed while teaching as I am trying to teach a full lesson with all of the components of the OSU lesson plan as well as remembering to show all of the pieces of the EdTPA rubrics. Different days throughout this week I have questioned my teaching ability and techniques. I was unsure if students were retaining the content I was teaching. Thursday was reassuring in that fact as students were putting the different pieces of content together and able to compare the differences.

At the end of EdTPA week, I have decided I will need one more day next week to wrap up my lessons and planned activities. This will be my fifth day of filming and my fifth lesson for EdTPA.