Bear Lloyd 3/31/14 Week 10 / Reflection 1 Planning Although I have been very satisfied with the lesson plans

I have developed, the learning activities we have completed, and students responses to them, I have found that a weakness of mine is planning exactly how long it will take students to complete a learning assignment. Generally, I have found that I over plan quite a bit. Due to my content area, I tend to do several projects for learning assignments so that students can apply their learning, and these projects usually take more time to complete than I had planned on. However, things are still going quite well with each of these lessons, and my students are enjoying them. When learning assignments take longer than I expected, I generally just spend another day on that lesson. In light of this, I always make note of it in my lesson plan reflections, so that I can have a better idea of the amount of time needed for each lesson when I begin using these plans as a first year teacher. I am sure that as time progresses, I will become better and better at assessing exactly how much time it will take students to complete a particular learning activity. As for now, I am still focusing on improving these skills. I have learned that there are a number of factors that affect how long it takes students to complete a learning assignment other than the learning assignment itself. First, student ability greatly affects the pace at which they are able to work. I am blessed to have students that are incredibly bright and are hard workers. Even though I still tend to over plan for these students, I know that they will be appropriately challenged by my hands-on learning assignments. There is one student in one of my courses that sometimes struggles a bit more than the others at keeping up the pace. In order to differentiate instruction for him, I often provide him with individualized attention and sometimes scale back the projects for him. In addition, the amount of class interruptions greatly impacts the pace at which students are able to move forward. This past week seemed to be one of the most interrupted weeks so far due to inclement weather and SOL testing. For example, there were several days that passed that I did not even have my students in class. When students only have short amounts of time to work on an assignment or a lengthy number of days without class, a lot of time must be dedicated to helping them get back on track and to reorganize themselves. This student teaching experience has taught me quite a bit about estimating the time it takes to complete projects and other assignments. Although I still have more to learn, I am much more prepared for planning than I was when I started. Even though this is a skill I am working to improve, I have found that it is okay if it takes students a day longer to complete a lesson or project than I anticipated as long as they are learning and having an enriching experience. After all, this is our goal as educators.

Bear Lloyd 3/31/14 Week 10 / Reflection 2 Freshman Orientation This past week I had the opportunity to assist with freshman orientation at the high school. This turned out to be quite an enjoyable experience. During orientation, all of the upcoming freshman and their parents met in the auditorium. There, they were welcomed by the principal and other faculty members. Afterwards, the schools guidance counselors provided students with information regarding what classes they needed to register for, graduation requirements, and what electives students may take. Faculty and staff also spoke about other matters regarding students upcoming high school career. In addition, the chorus also performed a few songs. In the cafeteria, each department at the high school had a table set up to provide parents and students information about their course offerings and extracurricular activities, to recruit students, and to answer any questions they may have. My duties required me to help with the business and marketing departments tables. I greatly enjoyed talking to the students and their parents about what these departments had to offer as well as listening to students talk about what interests them. The business department allows freshman to take the Fundamentals of Information Technology course, which is a prerequisite to most of the departments other courses. In addition, this department allows students to join the FBLA, which is a wonderful organization aimed at developing students leadership and business skills. In addition, the marketing department offers freshman a chance to take the Introduction to Marketing course. This is one of the courses I am currently teaching this semester, and it is a very enjoyable and hands-on class. The curriculum covers the basics of marketing, sales, advertising and promotion, the economy, and entrepreneurship. Also, freshman that sign up for this course are allowed to join DECA. DECA is a great student organization that aims to develop students leadership and marketing skills. In light of all this, I believe that the most enjoyable part of freshman orientation is watching students reach another milestone in their lives. I know many of the upcoming freshman and have watched them grow over the years. I am so excited for them as they begin their high school careers and take part in the many opportunities it provides. In addition, it is always a wonderful experience to meet the parents and siblings of students you already have in class. There is no doubt that schools are integral parts of a small town, and it is great to watch members of our communities come together at the school. There is nothing quite like watching children grow into young adults and to be blessed with the honor to be a part of their lives. I am looking forward to many more freshman orientations to come.

Bear Lloyd 4/1/14 Week 10 / Reflection 3 Grades This past week marked another milestone in my student teaching career. Last Friday was the official end of the third nine weeks grading period. I taught the vast majority of this nine weeks, so I had the responsibility of finalizing students grades, along with my mentor teacher, before they were exported. I am incredibly happy to say that each of the students in all of my classes is passing. In fact, the vast majority of my students have an A. I have said this many times before and will continue to say that I am blessed with an incredibly bright and hard working group of students. The fact that the majority of these students finished this nine weeks with a strong A came as no surprise to me. There are several items that I have learned to keep in mind throughout any grading period. First, it is important to take several grades throughout the grading period. From time to time, we all have one or two assignments, quizzes, or tests that we just do not do as well on as we normally do for a variety of reasons. If we offer students the chance to earn a grade on enough assignments, then these outliers will essentially be drowned out and not affect their overall grade. In addition, I strongly believe that it is okay to allow students to retake a test or another assignment that they did poorly on in order to improve their grade as long as students do not take abuse of this privilege. As long as a student is willing to put forth the effort, I am willing to do whatever it takes to help them achieve a satisfactory grade. In addition, it is incredibly important to ensure that students are taking care of their makeup work before the end of the grading period. If this is not done, then teachers and students can become incredibly stressed when they begin to realize that there are several missing assignments that need to be completed within a few short days in order to prevent students from receiving poor marks on these assignments. I am thankful that I was very proactive about this issue from the beginning and made sure that students completed their missing assignments in a reasonable amount of time and that I continually reminded them about these missing assignments. This saved me a great deal of stress and made finalizing grades a relatively easy process. Also, it is very important to keep students up to date with their grades all throughout a grading period. This allows them to work hard to pull up their grades if need be while there is still time. Oftentimes, students can become so busy that they do not focus on their grades as much as they should until the end of the nine weeks when it is often too late to dramatically improve ones grade. However, I continually showed students their grades throughout the nine weeks and worked with them to help them achieve an A. The end of a grading period is often a stressful time for students and teachers. However, if we are proactive and keep these issues in mind all throughout the year, finalizing grades can be a relatively simple process as it was for me this nine weeks.