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Building positive relationships with the parents of your students is almost just as important. I was never in the position to see my observing teacher interact with parents. Also, we talked about so many important things, just not how to build relationships with parents. I do know that one of the best things you can do as a teacher to build a positive relationship is to call home about a positive thing that their child did. Inform the parents of their child progress and bring up the students interests. Bringing up interest will show that you care more about your students than just their academic abilities. I also think this will change depending on the grade level, but there should be a constant flow of communication between the teacher and the parents. This will show the parents that you want the to be involved in their childs learning.

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Because I am not actually student teaching right now, I have not had the opportunity to write a lesson plan to actually teach in the classroom. I did observe this past semester at Abilene High with a 25 year veteran teacher. It was very eye opening to see the difference in the way she "lesson plans" to the way we are being taught to lesson plan. She is not required to turn in lesson plans, but she does create a calendar with due dates, the information to be learned, and test dates for the students. She passes this out to the students at the beginning of each month so they are aware of what the plan is. She said that she does this so the student are aware of what they will be learning, and so they know what they will be missing if they are to miss her class. She updates the calendar every year as needed for instructional changes.

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I knew how important first impressions were, but walking into a classroom is a completely different story. In the classroom you have to have a good first impression with not only your collaborating teacher but also the students, the principal, and the parents. I never got to meet the principal or the parents, as I was not in the classroom for very long. My first impression with the students was so important and I wish I had done a few things differently. I didn't think it would be very important to introduce myself to the students while observing because I would be in there classroom for maybe 8 days out of the school year. I think this really hindered my experience because I really did not have the opportunity to interact with the students because they did not know who I was. If I could go back, I would ask my teacher to give me just a few minutes to let me introduce myself to the class. I know I will take the first impression with my students a lot more serious the nest time I walk into a classroom.

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I was lucky enough to get to observe PLC's every time I went to the school to observe. I was able to not only watch the five biology teachers lesson plan an go over their future tests, but also the assistant principal come in to break the STAAR data down. This was a very insightful to observe this breakdown of data, as we were going over this in class as well.

This PLC time was a great time to see the collaboration of multiple teaching styles and ideas coming together for one common goal. It was very obvious that there was one teacher that was not liked as much as the other ones, but they did not let this get in the way of keeping things professional.

My observing teacher also had a "teacher bestie" that she worked very closely with. They were always bouncing ideas off of and sharing resources each other. All of this proved to me how important having a community within the school is.

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I had an idea of what I thought Abilene High would be like, prior to beginning my observations. I had heard so many horror stories of this school so I had no clue what I would be walking into, I just assumed it would be bad. My first impression of this school though was actually very good. My observing teacher was so warm and welcoming. A few of the other teachers were also welcoming to me and did not hesitate to make me feel comfortable to join in on conversations. My first impression of the students was exactly what you would expect form the grade levels that they were. The upperclassman were well behaved, respected their teacher, and were able to work on their own. The freshman though, were the complete opposite. They had little to no respect for their teacher, had to be constantly reminded to stay on task, and were not able to work independently.

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My observing teacher did not have much of a classroom management plan, or if she did it just wasn't very good. If kids were acting out she would usually just ignore it, which I did not agree with. I was not in the classroom at the beginning of the year so I don't know if discipline just did not work with the kids or if she just gave up. If I was the teacher in the classroom, I would have tried to incorporate some type of reward system to encourage better behavior from the freshman students. I also thing that being more consistent with all of the classes would have been tremendously helpful. I know that you cannot waste all of your class time trying to get students to behave, but being more consistent with consequences would result in better behavior.

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Building positive relationships with your students are so important. My collaborating teacher has great relationships with the majority of her students. She does well do not raise her voice at them (expect her freshman), which I believe helps with their respect of her. She also does her best to respect them as the young adults they are. She shows concern to their lives and is there to listen but never pries into their lives. She also does her best to respect their personal beliefs. By this, I mean that we are living in an every changing world. She always calls a student by what they wish too be called, even if it is not their birth given name or pronoun. While this one would take me a little bit to get used to, I think this has been so helpful to build a positive relationship with the students. I think it really is the small things that build the best relationships with students.

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The classroom that I observed in did not appear to be very organized, but my observing teacher did always know where papers were. There is what I would call a student desk, that has extra copies for each class and turn in bins. The students know this routine, there are never any questions asked about where to turn in or if they can get an extra copy of a worksheet. She also gives each student a calendar at the beginning of each unit with every due date, test, and lecture day. This keeps not only her better organized but the students as well. For her upperclassmen classes, she will give the students all the handouts they will need at the beginning of each unit along with the calendar. She does this to ensure that all students get their work even if they are out of class for a day. She also makes every work she due on the day of the exam for that unit. The students are allowed to turn in their work early, but this makes it easier for her to calculate late work grades.

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My observing teacher let me in on so many tricks she had used throughout the years that have made her life easier. The first one that she shared with me was an app that assists in grading exams. She said that so much valuable planning time can be wasted on grading, so this had been a huge help. She also keeps binders of all the worksheets and notes pages she gives out during the years. Then, the next year she is able to look through her binder and see what she wants to reuse the next year. She also gave me a tip to make friends with the janitor. They do so much for us, and being in a science classroom, there may be a bit more to clean up than in an English or math classroom.

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The classroom that I was placed in was set up with what I would call a traditional lay out. The desks were just in individual rows facing the front of the classroom. The teacher desk was also at the front, between the classroom area and the lab area. She did this so she was able to monitor the students from her desk in both the class and the lab. I do like the idea of my desk being between the to areas so I am able to monitor without the kids feeling like I am looking over their shoulder. This will give the students a sense of ownership of their own learning. I do think that having the desks in pairs would be very beneficial to enhance the students learning. This will allow for collaboration, questioning, and discussions on the content.

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As far as the structure of the classroom, I would say it was a very teacher centered classroom. The students didn't do much discussing. While I was there, the students were either working independently, listening to a lecture, or watching a video. The students seemed very unengaged during the videos. These videos were played for a senior level AP class. After watching how the students act while watching videos, I don't think I will be playing too many videos, or if I do they will be no longer than 5 minutes. I never want to play a video in hopes of it just "babysitting" my class. I know how important it is to engage students in discussion, so I will really prioritize that in my classroom.

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There was a fair amount fo technology integrated into to classroom. There was a smart board that was used every day for instructional purposes. Students also had access to chrome books. Though they were not used everyday, some assignments required the internet. The review games that the students play are online, which then gives the teacher data to better assess how they are doing teaching the content. I do thing that there could be a little more technology integration into the classroom, even for the benefit of the teacher. Google classroom is a wonderful resource to help students stay more organized and minimize the usage of paper. My teacher did not use this resource, or if she did it was not very often because I never saw it or heard her mention it. Technology is here to enhance out learning and make out jobs easier. If we have it I think we should not hesitate to take advantage of it.