My master teacher Dr. David Robertson is awesome. He is one of those teachers you would see in the movie. He's very smart, funny, and spontaneous. I catch myself laughing at his accent or joke he's made in the class, while the students are confused, which makes things even funnier. I observed his class the first week, but he decided to throw me into the lion's den the second week, which was a good learning experience. I was incredibly nervous the first time I taught, but in the end, no one died. =) We did a fun get to know you activity called Pop Quiz where the students write questions and put it in a balloon. Since they are also in a persuasive unit, I made a powerpoint on Prezi, stating a case for why these students should accept me as their student teacher and it turned out successfully. They were also asked to do name cards and letters. The name card was just a fun little art thing that I found online that showed me what they like and don't like. The letter was addressed to me. I gave them this assignment to check their writing ability. It helped a little, but I don't think it gave me a good evaluation of their writing. It was nice to get to know each student though. The second week, we read an article in the book that was pro uniforms and the benefits of wearing uniforms. I put the groups into teams and had them debate for uniforms or against. It turned out really successful and the students did an excellent job, even the ones that were terribly shy.
My other master teacher Julie Stoll is also awesome. She is very nice. She never pressured me to start right away. She asked me if I wanted to lead a book talk, where I have the students discuss what book they've read and discuss it with the whole class. This is an ESL class filled with only 14 students, which is nice because it's small. The downfall to having small classes means that the students are more comfortable, so they can be more rowdy and noisy. I have a kid name Shawn who deliberately tests the authority of the teacher and I. It's been a challenge, but I think he's getting better. I think my job is to be firm, but supportive. I still don't know how to do both. The cool thing about this class is that the teacher is always open to try new things that might help benefit the students.
