Mason Early Childhood Center

1st Grade
26 students
Reading, Writing, Word Work, Math, Science, Social Studies

Through my student teaching internship, I had the wonderful opportunity of working with
two cooperating teachers. They team-taught in approach where they split up the different content
areas and the students switched classrooms to learn in the two different environments. I followed
the students to the respected classrooms and full-time taught for 8 weeks in each of these content
areas. During this time, I developed differentiated lessons for the academic areas for English
Language Learners, students at a higher-level, students at a lower-level, and a student on an IEP. I
created rapport with the students through the use of morning and afternoon meetings which
created a sense of classroom community and involvement. I also communicated with parents and
guardians of my students through parent-teacher conferences. This taught me how to create
positive relationships with my students families. The curriculum required me to use Readers and
Writers Workshop developed by Lucy Calkins which was highly beneficial for the students to make
connections between reading and writing. In math, I used Investigations to teach a variety of
hands-on learning experiences that involved partner-work and independent-work. Word work was
taught through Words Their Way in leveled learning groups that met with me once a week. Social
Studies and Science were taught through a variety of hands-on learning experiences that highly
involved group work. The assessments that were given were based on the district curriculum, as well
as my informal assessments of observation during lessons. I successfully completed and passed the
Teacher Performance Assessment which was based on planning, instructing, and assessing students
on pre-reading strategies for comprehension. The professional development workshops and
opportunities I attended gave me insight into collaboration and work with colleagues in a
professional and successful work environment.

My student teaching placement at Mason Early Childhood Center is where I grew the most
and learned so much about myself as an educator. I became a communicator and a collaborator
through the work I did with both of my cooperating teachers. I referred to them as sources for all
of my differentiated lessons and learned to receive constructive criticism and apply it to making my
next lesson even better. Another skill that I acquired throughout this placement was being an
active observer. This meant that I was both watching and listening to all those around me and how
they conducted their classrooms. I was able to learn responsive classroom management techniques,
as well as how to model expected behaviors such as how to manipulate certain materials in a math
lesson. Through observation, I was able to develop my own sense of self and how I would like to be
perceived by my students. Finally, in this placement I acquired a skill that I believe is important in
any aspect of life. Self-reflection became a very important factor in every lesson that I taught to
my students. Through self-reflection, I was able to tell myself what I did well, what I did not do
well, and what I could change to make it better in the future. By doing this, I believe I grew
stronger as an educator throughout my student teaching experience and provided my students with
interactive lessons.

These are all skills that I believe are extremely important for an educator to have in any
school district or on any team. I have developed these skills and want to keep growing and learning
from them because they are what will benefit my students.