Reflect on a lesson that you wish had gone in a different direction. What would you change and why?

I wish my students' presentations had gone better. I expected the students to look up the material and become experts on their subject ( the goal of any assignment where each student has a single, unique topic) and then educate their classmates. This was not the case for most of the students. For the most part, they just copy and pasted off the first three Google results and handed it in regardless of its content. The material they handed in was sometimes copy and pasted. It was mildly depressing but next time I will be sure to discuss plagiarism and its repercussions more in depth beforehand. Also, it is difficult to revert from case studies and intensely focusing and covering as much material as possible on one subject (i.e. college) to a brief overview of a topic (high school)

Without using last names, which child do you think you influenced most this week? In what way (academic, social, emotional)?

A student in my 7th period influenced me the most this week. At first I thought the student was going to be a problem child and was going to be an interruption all class every class. But he is very intelligent, applies himself to all of his work and really puts forth an effort that I did not expect the first few weeks of school. He has impressed me academically, however I still feel he needs to work on his social and emotional skills. Sometimes he can be...immature in class and if he can master that (which he will) then he will do just fine.

Think about one of your recent presentations. Was there a student who was inattentive? How could you involve that student and draw him/her into the le

There are always students who are inattentive and I always wonder how I can keep them paying attention. At the same time it is hard for me to say anything to them because I always used to sleep in class too. Partially because I was tired but mostly because I wasn't interested in the material being taught (and that's kind of common sense, if something is exciting it will keep my interest and I won't be going to sleep) so to me that is saying that I need to make my classes more interesting so that I don't have sleepers. Often I try to use humor and wit to keep kids interested, I feel like this is fairly successful. They say they enjoy my class a lot more then their other classes so hopefully they are more attentive to what I say then in their other classes.

Classroom interruptions unfortunately occur. Do these affect your instruction? How do you get students back on track?

I feel like it does not affect my teaching that badly. I am sure that I have room for growth and will get better as time goes on, but I feel like it is not a tough issue for me...That being said EFHS has an incredible amount of interruptions. There are multiple interruptions a period. But maybe it will get better as the semester continues.

Your lesson took less time than expected. How could you utilize the time left for your subject?

I would utilize the time to talk about something else related to social studies. Probably a current event. In some of my history classes at wvu instructors would do that and it was a good 10 minute time killer but one that was interesting and engaging. It allowed for a teachable moment a lot of times. Plus, one of the benefits of teaching social studies is that any current event is going to be something related to social studies. The recent economic downturn...economics. 2012 election...politcal science. All of these are social studies related and thus teachable at any time. Plus there is a ton of material (news websites, news channels, blogs, pictures, opinion pieces etc) to choose from.

PDS Plan

By utilizing the plan this semester it was much easier complete assignments. In prior semesters, it was difficult to keep track of time and assignments seemed to sneak up on me. Being able to visualize when work was due gave me the idea and incentive to plan ahead. While working through previous years, work seemed to overwhelm me, due to the fact that I procrastinated to a large extent. This semester seemed to move much smoother, allowing me to work on my teaching skills rather than worry about assignments. On the other hand, while completing the plan I received the feeling of a work overload. This was caused by the ability to view all assignments at the beginning of the semester. Although, there was a vast amount of time to complete the work, it was somewhat overwhelming to view all of the work for the entire semester. For the most part I would recommend doing this every year, because it allows teacher prospects to stay on task. It also provides incentives to communicate with your host teacher about assignments and lesson plans

two other characteristics

As I stated before about being a lifelong learner, a teacher in our modern society must be able to adapt and develop as times change. Ethics is extremely important in education today. Educators must understand how to approach delicate situations with the proper technique and ethical value. An educator's decision within the classroom must reflect an atmosphere of equality and high standard. Every student must feel as if they are a high priority to the school and that their presence is required. Many articles I have read and studied have shown that many students feel as though teachers play favorites or ignore certain students. This only adds to the difficulty of incorporating all students into a lesson and increasing the material retention. An educator is meant to provide a positive roll model to students in a classroom. By acting in a respectful and ethical manner we can help influence the youth of today to become leaders of tomorrow. Being liberally educated is another characteristic that I feel plays a major roll in the development of educators today. Having a well rounded knowledge on content can only improve the effectiveness of a teacher. Many times material in a class can relate to material learned in another content. A well rounded mindset can enable a teacher to apply material in various views for different types of learners to understand in their own way. By improving teaching techniques and giving interesting information will only improve the student involvement and overall outcome of the class