Self Evaluation

I have learned so much this semester dealing with teaching that I am amazed I have a previous degree in Education. Looking back to the first class I taught and comparing that to my teaching the past few days I see such growth in confidence and ability. I was a ball of nerves in the first class I taught. I was jittery, had a shaky voice and not confident in my lesson plan. Currently I have a sense of authority in my voice and I am calmer in front of the class and am confident in my abilities.

One thing that I know I need to still work on is the timing of my lesson plans. In the beginning of the semester I stuck to my lesson ideas minute to minute. Now, I tend to plan too much and just go with where the class takes me. In a sense I think that is good but also I never accomplish as much as I would like to. I over estimate on timing but at least I will never run out of things to do.

My lessons at the beginning of the semester seemed very generic with no real connect to the work the students were doing. Now I find ways to connect activities in the classroom to the paper or assignment the students are working on. I think this is a better way to develop and focus lessons because it gives the students a reason to pay more attention and seems more real for the students.

I went in to the classroom with the idea that my lesson was not going to work. For some reason I always thought that my ideas would backfire on me and would prepare all these back up activities that I have never used. The lessons that I thought would backfire the most seem to be the ones that the students were the most engaged in. I liked the activities that required the class to work as a whole and have the students build on their classmates’ ideas.

I seemed to be able to build a relationship with most of the students in the class. I mixed up some names here and there, but for the most part I was able to relate and know the students. I think this helped me a lot when I was teaching and gave me more respect from the students. My interaction with the students and the relationships that I can form seem to be my strongest point. Not only does this give me more respect in the classroom but I think I can reach the students more effectively as well. The students seem more willing to interact with me and with each other as well as listening and participating in activities.

As compared to the beginning of the semester I have grown tremendously. The shaky hands and quivering voice are gone and replaced with a sense of confidence. Even though I still need to grow to be a good and effective teacher I feel as though I now can reach the students on a level that they will be able to learn. Being a good teacher has nothing to do with me, it has everything to do with the students and I hope that I can continue to build relationships with students in the classroom to help them learn.