First day...come and gone

Well I hope my fellow counselling group members had a successful first day! Mine was a little rough around the edges but pulled through in the end.

My first lesson, an Introduction to Rural and Urban Geography was a tough period. To start off, I have never seen or taught a social studies unit and therefore was a little unaware of how exactly it should be taught. To make the situation harder, my students thought they could take advantage of the fact that my associate was not the one teaching them. After the class was over, my associate chatted with me immediately after. We discussed more what was expected of me in social studies and I now have more structured lessons for those periods. In addition, we agreed that I would have to show my discontent with their behaviour during the social studies period before my math lesson began.

After having time to settle down over lunch and a prep, I was ready for my second lesson...Introduction to Data Management. Before I started my lesson I did discuss with my students that i was very disappointed with their previous behaviour and pointed out that I deserve the same respect they give to any of the other teachers at the school. After this discussion, the students were better behaved. They came over to the meeting place and were all very engaged with my lesson. I had prepared some props in advance and the students knew immediately that they were going to have to sort them. Not only did I have certain students sort the shapes, I had the others guess what the thinking was behind the grouping. This kept them all very engaged with the activity. Even during their seat work, the students worked independently and raised their hands if they had questions...surprising what a little behaviour talk will do!!! One of the questions was causing many difficulties for the students, so instead of having them work individually on the question, we took it up as a group. Overall, it was a much more organized lesson.

Well day one is now done and day two is coming. Off to lesson planning for the future.