Team Teaching

For the most part, I do the majority of the teaching in class. Mrs. Hastings is always there to help and support students if I'm working with someone else, however, she generally lets me take complete charge.  There have been a few occasions where I wasn't sure how to present a certain topic and I would ask her to step in for a while so I could see how she would present that material.  It's very beneficial for me because I get to stand back and see what she does and how the students respond to it.  I also think the students like to mix it up a little and have Mrs. Hastings do an activity with them for a while since they always have me teaching them.  We don't have a Special Ed. teacher or other type of aid in our classes so it's always just Mrs. Hastings and I and I'm just fine with that. We have a really good relationship and similar teaching styles.

La Comunidad de la Escuela

The school community for MHS is very diverse.  Firstly, it's located in Morgantown which is, obviously, where WVU is located.  There's a strong connection between MHS and WVU. A lot of the students have parents that work for the university and most also plan on attending one day.  One of my students last year was even President Clements daughter! Families in Morgantown span the entire socioeconomic spectrum.  There are a good bit of international students, however the majority tend to come from Middle Eastern families.  I have noticed in my time here that there is not a very large Hispanic population which makes it hard to show students how they can use Spanish in their community.

Parent- Teacher Conferences

Last week we had our first round of parent-teacher conferences.  I was a little nervous about them but Mrs. Hastings told me there was nothing to worry about.  We set up four desks in the front of the classroom for us to use and printed out the progress reports of the students we knew had parents coming in.  We had about 5 conferences and they all went really well. The parents were nice and receptive to what we were saying and Mrs. Hastings told me that she wanted me to have just as much say as she did in the conferences so I also got to comment on the students.  We made sure to use the "compliment sandwich" with the parents: say something good about the student, say an area they could improve on, and then finish with another compliment. Overall, I think it was a really good experience and I'm glad I finally got to participate in my first ever parent-teacher conferences.

Mi Relacion con Otros Profesores

So far I've developed a really good relationship with the other teachers at MHS. I think one thing that they like about me is that I don't try to act like I know everything about education and I never complain.  I also treat them like my superiors and not my coworkers because, honestly, I'm not REALLY a teacher yet and they are above me. I eat lunch with my mentor teacher, my PDS coordinator and a couple other teachers every day and I really enjoy that.  I get to hear their interpretations of things that went on in their classrooms and how they handled things.  Overall, I take it as a learning experience being in there. I'm going to go to a conference with the other FL teachers so I'm really looking forward to that.

Looking back, the first couple days I was with the students was a little nerve racking.  I wasn't sure how they were going to react to a student teacher and I wasn't entirely sure how well I would handle being THE teacher of a class with my own students.  Although Mrs. Hastings was always there to support me, she allowed me to take complete control. She ensured that we were both seen as the teachers with equal say in what happened in the class room and I can't thank her enough for giving me that responsibility.  The students were really receptive to us.  We had a couple awkward moments when I maybe just wasn't sure what to do in a certain situation, however, Mrs. Hastings and I can communicate in Spanish so I can ask her a question without the students knowing what we're saying and maybe seeming like we aren't sure about a certain thing.  I think they also think it's really cool to hear us speaking in Spanish to each other because they always want to know what we're saying.  The students have definitely gotten more comfortable with me and I with them.  I think that the rest of the semester will be a great one if we can keep going in the direction we're going now.