AEE 412 Lab Reflection

 In a little over a month I will be teaching in a real classroom with real students, sure I will be under the close supervision of my cooperating teacher and my university supervisor but it's still a pretty big deal!

As I look back over the semester and lab in particular I can see the changes. It hit me the other day as the race is on to finish everything on time. Every single lesson plan that I wrote for lab and other courses, isn't quite as good as I thought. Its not that I didn't put time and effort into them, but at the time I was doing the best I could with what I knew.

I know a lot more now and there is still a lot that I am unsure of but I have seen the progression.

The very first day of lab we were to teach a lesson on a topic chosen at random, this was their way of gauging where we were at. As I think back to that lab my lesson was boring, unclear, and lacked direction. These were all things that I could be taught over the course of the semester. Now when I look at my lesson plans I see a lot of experiences that I am not sure how they will go, how long they will take, and if I can keep students attention long enough to complete them. Unfortunately these are things that can only be learned in one way,and that is teaching in the classroom in front of 20 students that will tear you apart if your not on your game.

Now I know that I have a great support system working with me, but it is still going to be a challenge, one that I am excited to undertake.

Lab this semester has taught me a lot about teaching and even more about myself. I know what kind of person I am, but I do not know what kind of teacher I will be. Will I be the teacher that lets people walk all over them, will I be the quite one, the shy one, or the fun teacher. Well, I do not have the answer, what I do know is that for 3 days of micro teaching and 1 day for my life knowledge lesson I got to apply everything that I have been learning this past semester and it was great. Now sure I forgot some key items like posting objectives, clarity of instruction, and such, but I knew that I missed these the second after they were unclear or forgotten.

When the semester started I would have taught these lessons a completely different way, and I know that tomorrow they will be taught differently and in the future they will be different again.

The lab was real, it was stressful, it was pressure, and we weren't affecting the lives of real students.

Overall I have seen myself grow as a student, a teacher, and an individual.