Does anyone have any advice for a soon to be student teacher?
Any help and advice is welcome. Thanks, Sue
Speaking as someone who recently completed mine, and am
starting my first job next week. . .
1. Visit the school ahead of time, meet the principal, staff, and if
possible your co-operating teacher. I met with the principal a week
before I started, and had an opportunity to meet with the staff at
this time. I didn't know who would be my coop teacher at this time,
but since I knew the staff it didn't matter too much.
2. Provide all your evaluators with your expectations, and request
their expectations (all in writing). Make sure everyone can agree on
the basic expectations. Not all of them may be agreed too, but if
you are in agreement on the major ones you should be okay.
During my first (aborted) student teaching experience I wanted to
work on my classroom management skills (a potential weakness of
mine), however my co-op teacher literally handled the classroom
management behind my back. A pre-practicum meeting could have
prevented that.
3. Know what you will be expected to teach ahead of time. Know
the curriculum that you will be teaching, along with the units you
will be involved with. For example, I was told I would be teaching
the Weather unit to both Grade 5 classes, Gymnastics to Grade 4,
Gymnastics and Rugby to both Grade 5 classes. Later on I was
expected to teach Art and Math.
4. Know your co-op teacher's classroom rules and policies. Since
you are a guest, you will be expected to follow and enforce them.
Most of them should be very similar for all teachers with minor
differences. For example, one of my co-op teachers permitted
Tamogauchis <sp?> as long as the sound was off, but I wanted to
ban them entirely from the classroom. After one particular incident
involving one of them, she changed her mind and banned the
<insert expletive here> things from the class. It later became a
school wide ban.
5. Bring your own lesson and idea lessons to school and talk over
them with your co-op teacher. They always enjoy new ideas, and
mine asked for photocopies of them to use later on in the year.
6. Participate in extra-curricular activities. I, along with the other
student teachers at the school, designed and implemented an
intramural program. Looks good on the resume, and may have
helped me get my job. It also allows you to get to know your
students on a different level.
7. Don't be afraid to say NO. Re: my intramural program, I ended
up having to help supervise intramurals everyday, even though other
teachers volunteered to help out (they didn't want to be alone).
8. Try and get a common period when all the student teachers in
the school (at the U of Alberta, student teachers are at schools in
at least groups of 2), where you can all meet. Ask the principal to
give you a private unused room where you won't be interrupted by
others. We were allowed to complain about anything and anyone
without having to worry about an ethics charge, provided any
criticism stayed in the room (Magic Circle sort of thing). This
allowed us to come up with solutions and proposals to solve
problems in a more professional way later on.
9. Forget about a social life, but do get out once in a while.
10. Participate in staff outings, and PD days.
I'm sure there are many others that others can think of. Many of
these could probably apply to 1st year teachers as well.
Lloyd Johnston (http://www.compusmart.ab.ca/lloydj)
Deninoo School
Ft. Resolution, NWT
For faster responses send E-mail replies to
lloydj@compusmart.ab.ca
August 1998