Week 4

This week I  finally felt 100% comfortable in my classroom. I finally feel like this classroom is mine and these students are mine. I had the opportunity to take over for the day and my cooperating teacher was not in the classroom at all, and I found that this helped give me ownership and complete responsibility, which in turn forced me to be THE TEACHER. My classroom management skills improved a ton and I was able to feel in control.

I love middle school students. They are so much fun to teach because they can be silly one minute and then go back to working the next. I learned this week that being a middle school teacher means that you need to be able to be an entertainer. These kids respond well to goofy comments, funny images and examples, and really an overall performance when teaching. I've begun focusing my lessons and teaching style around this approach and I have seen awesome results!

In Social Studies this week I chose to start something new and different than Jeopardy. I created a Kahoot quiz where my students will work in groups to play against each other to prove their understanding of the material. I will be trying this next week on the Panama Canal. I am very excited! In order to prepare my students for Kahoot, I used it in a Bible lesson this week. They loved it. They created poster projects on the different furnishings located in the Tabernacle. After a group presented on it, they took a small Kahoot quiz on the material. This was effective for many reasons. First, they paid way better attention during the presentation because they wanted their group to win and second because they could learn how to play Kahoot and I could work out any kinks before we play it big time in Social Studies.

I am having so much fun trying new things in the classroom. My supervisor said, "Keep trying new things, if they fail, so what? At least you are trying!"

I took over devotions in the morning before we start the day and one of the girls in my classroom said to me, "I feel like you are our real teacher Ms. Disselkoen." This made my heart really warm because I know that these students respect me and feel comfortable with me. I am very thankful for my cooperating teacher and how much he has pushed me and helped me become a part of this awesome class. I am going to be so sad when I have to leave.

I have learned a lot this week, in addition to needed to be a performer sometimes and trying new things. I have learned more about the Navajo culture. First, I learned that I have been saying the word "Navajo" slightly wrong. I also learned that in the Navajo culture, snakes make them feel uncomfortable because it is similar to the devil. I learned this because in one of my math lessons we played a game called "snakes" and a few students had a huge problem with it. After this happened, a student came up to me and explained the Navajo Creation Story to me. This was beyond interesting and she said she would bring in an old book sometime for me to take a look at about this legend.

Next week I will be completing and 100% full time everyday. I am beyond excited to add math into my course load. I am not and have not been the best at math ever, but I think that this could be an advantage for my students. We will work through problems together step by step and hopefully it will help understand the material better. My cooperating teacher thinks so too and we are both excited!

God has blessed with me so much in this place and I feel overwhelmed with joy and thankfulness. I really hope that my time at Rehoboth is not done after student teaching. It has become home to me.

As far as adventures outside of teaching goes, I was able to hike the crevice this past weekend with a bunch of teachers. We had a blast inching our way through rocks and hiking in God's creation. I continue to be in awe of this beautiful place.