It's over...Final Reflection!

So it's over. My methods/practicum experience is finally over and now on to student teaching! Woohoo! I am so excited, pumped, nervous, scared, happy, sad all at once! The past 15 weeks have taught me so much; from in the classroom to my expereinces at Stow. I feel without this course, I wouldn't have learned some great ideas to help me teach writing. KSU hasn't really given us any other time to learn how to teach writing so this class was it, which I do think is pretty crazy. But the activities we did in class were very helpful. I am concerned about having to teach my research paper next semester because I feel like yes I did learn some creative writing ideas but I don't feel too prepared to teach the ideas for research. I am use to do doing research papers at the college level, not teaching research papers to HS students. I am fortunate though that I will have Writing Wiki's we created because I think that is a very helpful tool for me. Those Wiki's I will hold onto and use as much as I can because they truly have some great sites

I felt the texts selected for this course were very helpful, especially Nancy Atwells "In the Middle." Her ideas on writers workshops are something I hope to use in my classroom. I also liked the useful charts and guides in the back of text book that make it easy to use in every day life. I really enjoyed reading Koch's text as well. It was not only written so that I could easily follow it and it gave me helpful hints on the writing process and what it means to be a writer. I feel they were great choices that guided our class well. I enjoyed the fact that we di

dn't talk a lot about them in class but instead used our blogs to do the talking. I liked that we dedicated class time to our teaching and how to make activities stronger.

For me being from the 2005 catalogue year, I didn't get the opportutnity to do the multi-modal class. I felt for the first month of this course that I didn't understand anything. I literally was like, "what the heck is a Wiki? How do I put media in my blog? How do I make a movie?AH!" But through the semester and helpful hints from Dr. Kist and my fellow classmates I felt much more at ease. I actually did not know a lot of the students in this cohort as well; I had classes with the 2009 INLA class and knew them all so well, so I felt a little out of place at first, but I truly have had the best experinece getting to know everyone this year. I had so much fun laughing with everyone and getting to know everyone a little bit better. I have learned a lot from everyone and their stories, blogs, about their time in the classroom.

Next semester should be interesting. I am excited to just focus on teaching and not worrying about teaching AND my own classes. That has been the most stressful thing about this semester, but I feel if I could handle this semester I can certainly handle next semester. I am just so ready to be in my classroom every day and be a teacher!To have a sucessful semester I just need to remember the following:

1) be organized- find some system that works for me that will keep all my papers organized.

2) plan plan plan- although I don't have to turn in lesson plans to Stow I still need to do them to keep things running smoothly

3) exercise/eat health/sleep= BE HEALTHY

4) relax you are still learning. You aren't expected to know everything. Utilize your co-op teacher and any other resources. This is a learning experence

5) Enjoy it! This is the last part of my college career. Document the memories and enjoy it!

May 2010 here we come!!