Midterm Reflection Paper:

Midterm Reflection Paper:

            Being that I am about five weeks into my student teaching experience, I have officially hit the half way mark of this journey, and since my student teaching for art education will be ending in November, my midterm was a bit sooner than my fellow student teaching candidates. Although originally I was a bit stressed out over the fact that my midterm was going to be sooner than average, I actually am very happy that it occurred this way because it required me to really buckle down on what my expectations are as a student teacher and on what expectations I had personally set for myself as well. It also required me to become more proactive within the classroom early on in this experience, which has really help in building up my relationships with my students as well.

In the beginning of my student teaching, I primarily observed, but even through my observation, I felt very much included in everyday tasks and apart of Havre High over all. My initial roles within the classroom have ranged from observing, helping in classroom set up, arranging the classroom so that each period is prepared for the current or next unit, laying out materials for projects, and helping my cooperating teacher in really anyways that she needed. As my time progressed, my roles did as well, and I was beginning to notice that I was hearing my students ask for my help a lot, being that we used different co-teaching methods in the beginning of this experience, it was slow at first for them to feel completely comfortable with me but as time has continued I have noticed more and more that these students are looking to me for help and truly viewing me as their teacher.

Being viewed more as their teacher rather than just a student observer has really helped in allowing them to feel comfortable with me and also allowed them to feel free to come to me and ask if it would be possible for them to come in early in the morning to work on a project if they were behind, or ask if they could stay in during lunch even. This ended up working out very was as my cooperating teacher and myself made arrangements for me to come in at the times for them to allow for them to really catch up on their projects, especially if they were behind due to absences caused by sports or anything like that. I have really noticed how this has really had an effect on them and that they are actually taking advantage of this out of class time we are allowing them, as long as they have made the proper arrangements with myself or my cooperating teacher to make sure that I am actually in the classroom at the time that they need me there, it works out perfectly for them and allows me to build upon the relationships I am currently developing with them. Being that my cooperating teacher allows for an additional week for students to work on their projects after we have concluded working on them during actual class time, I wanted to make sure that they are given every potential opportunity to come in during outside class time to finish their projects, so coming in a little earlier in the mornings or staying in the art classroom during lunch instead of eating in the teachers’ lounge was something that would help them with actually completing their assignments, I was more than happy to do that for them.

 As I am taking this time to reflect on these beginning weeks of my experience, I am able to see exactly how I am integrating the professional goals that I originally set for myself for my classroom, along with how and whether or not I am actually succeeding at these goals as well. With this, I have noticed that my own personal development through each of these goals is growing greatly, at least in my own opinion, and based off of the conversations I have had with both my University Supervisor and Cooperating Teacher, I now know that they are also seeing this personal growth and development as well.

            I know that as an educator, even though we may be considered the teachers and role models, that we are still very much students in a variety of ways, and I have had many instances occur where I am realizing that I am still very much a student and beginning to not only learn different teaching methods and styles and different ways of addressing and handling classroom management, but I am also understanding how these different factors affect our students, and how we truly learn something new every day from our students as well.

One thing in particular that I am learning is that it is incredibly important to maintain positive relationships with your students but it is also equally important that your students always view you as their teacher, not as a friend, with that I’m learning that while maintaining a positive relationship with your students you still need to remember to have that boundary for relationships and that maintaining the authoritative position as their educator is a very important aspect of developing relationships with your students in the first place. This is directly related to a similar goal I set for myself at the beginning of the school year actually; as much as I want my student to feel comfortable with me and my classroom I also don’t want them to lose sight of the fact that I am first and foremost their educator and that because of that sometimes I may not be their favorite person in the world whether that is because of grading or maybe needing to take their phone away from them in class. Even with all of this in mind, I am significantly noticing that even though my current students are enjoying my class and are clearly comfortable with me, they still are seeing me first as their teacher. This is also something that both my cooperating teacher and university supervisor are noticing as well, which has made me feel very good about this because obviously it’s one thing to think for myself that I am succeeding at this goal but it is another thing entirely to have my superiors take note of it as well.

            Along with maintaining this particular goal, I am currently working toward my other goals right now as well, like maintaining a positive environment within my classroom and also maintaining positive classroom management as well. Between working with my cooperating teacher and her own style/management techniques and integrating my personal twist onto it, we are able to have a comfortable classroom that is allowing for more success with our students.

In some instances of maintaining a positive classroom environment we have implemented things like a behavior contract with certain classes, due to the material we are using and the fact that sometimes, especially when it comes to creating art out of a material like clay, some students have a more difficult time staying within the appropriate boundaries of what is acceptable and school appropriate. I would say that behaviors such as these are the most difficult within a high school art class, at least being a new teacher, they are to me. Dealing with such behaviors or common rowdiness and “horseplay” in an art classroom can actually be detrimental to the creative process, the environment and even student safety being that we work with such a variety of materials. When I implemented the behavior contract to my Arts and Crafts classes, I could tell that they knew this contract was something that needed to be taken seriously, and if they didn’t they would have to deal with the consequences, the main consequence being that they would no longer be allowed to work with clay and would be given an alternative written assignment, and although I feel that they all for the most part are taking it seriously, I also have noticed a few personalities within these classes that still are continuing to embody the class clown persona or are really border-lining what appropriate behavior is for this unit as well. So far, subtle reminders of the contract and the fact that we are getting further along with the unit and creating more advanced pieces from the clay, they are becoming more focused on their works and in turn moving away from those behaviors that would not be considered appropriate for this unit or school in general. Aside from challenging behaviors such as these, I haven’t had very extreme challenges within my classes themselves, and I fully expected some behavioral challenges since I am working with high schoolers and dealing with particular behaviors can usually be anticipated with this age group.

But even with these sort of challenges I feel that I am still gaining great strength from them, my cooperating teacher is modeling very well how to approach and even anticipate particular situations that may occur or are coming up within the classroom, I am also realizing that although I am encountering your average behavioral challenges within a high school classroom, I am also gaining respect from my students as well. I know that as an educator we can’t be our students’ best friend, but it is important that they feel comfortable with us as much as it is important for them to respect us and I do believe my students are feeling both comfortable with me and respectful of me as well. In many instances of talking with former student teachers, I have been told that a lot of times, with older students especially, that it isn’t very common for them to truly care or really appreciate a student teacher’s presence, and I can honestly say that is not the case for me. I feel appreciated and welcomed by these kids every day which makes this entire experience even more enjoyable for myself.

And, I am not only feeling welcomed and appreciated by my students, but I am also feeling very appreciated within the school as well and by my cooperating teacher. Being that I moved to a town where I virtually don’t really know anyone and can’t really say I have many major connects, I haven’t felt out of place or alone once here, and I believe that is something that is very important with this overall experience. Because I have automatically felt so at home and welcomed here, I have also really wanted to make the absolute most out of this experience and truly want to go above and beyond for these kids, not just because I am a student teacher, but also because they deserve that from me, the school deserves that from me and my cooperating teacher deserves that from me. Because they are all making this such a fulfilling experience for me, I want to show everyone involved that I take this opportunity seriously. Feeling at home in this school environment is very important to me, because it makes me incredibly excited to come to Havre High every day. Now, I’m not saying that this is the absolute perfect experience, because that isn’t true. There are challenges throughout this entire experience whether that involves dealing with student behavior or classroom management or the fact that creating lesson plans and grading rubrics is actually a lot more stressful than one may realize, but with each of these challenges, whether they are big or small, I’m learning how to handle them and how to better myself for my future students. I know that I am far from perfect, but I also know that I am still very much a student, and that I am learning so much from this experience, that I’m glad this isn’t the absolute perfect experience, because I don’t believe I would be able to say I grew as an educator and that’s one of the main points of this experience, to grow.

With all that in mind, I can’t wait to see what the remaining weeks of my student teaching experience have in store for me, because I know I am going to only continue to learn so much from each and every one of my students with each passing day.