Weeks 3 & 4

Starting with week three, I started taking over my mentor teacher's 3rd and 4th period 7th grade classes. I was pretty excited because I would start feeling more like a real teacher and started using my own lessons. The transition was a pretty easy one since they have all been around me for a few weeks and were comfortable with me taking over. The students started off being a little more noisey since I was a student teacher and they wanted to test me, so I did have to raise my voice a little to let them know that I am in charge. The 3rd week went by very well and I was happy with what happened. During my fourth week I got into my own rythmn of doing things and felt very comfortable in class. I sped through some sections that flowed smoothly together so that I would be able to implement my action research test. The test had only 20 questions with 5 on basics, 8 on decimals and 7 on fractions. They had the entire period to work on it without a calculator so I could get my baseline data for my research. I was very surprised that the scores were so low with the main focus on fractions. My students acted like they have never seen or used fractions before in their lives. Even though my students performed poorly on this research test, it did provide me with a good baseline data so I know where to focus my attention with my students. The test also proved me right because it shows that my students have become very dependent on calculators for everything, including their basic skills that they should be mastering at this level. Overall it has been a pretty good semester and I am looking forward to this upcoming week because I will be taking over 4 out of the 6 classes and I am also going to the LSU game, so I am pretty psyched for that too.