Although this is a most exciting time in your developing career as an educator, it will not be easy. You may experience days of thrilling success with the lessons that you teach; but you will also experience frustration, as you struggle to teach your students and shift “to the other side of the desk.” These successes and struggles, highs and lows, are a common aspect of teacher development that many other teachers have experienced and continue to experience throughout their careers.
As a developing teacher working hard to enact Temple’s Standards for Skillful Teaching, however, you will not be alone. You will have not only your cooperating teacher, but also your university coach to guide and support you. Remember that teaching is collaborative and dynamic and everyone’s teaching can constantly be improved. Both your cooperating teacher and your coach can be excellent resources to help you improve your teaching and to ensure that your students are learning.
As the semester continues, you will acquire more and more responsibility in your teaching assignment. You will begin your work in the classroom by working with individuals and small groups of students and gradually begin to teach lessons with your cooperating teacher and on your own. You will work with your cooperating teacher to co-plan in order to enable you to meet both the host school’s academic standards and Temple University’s teaching standards. Later on in the semester you will be teaching or co-teaching with your cooperating teacher for the entire day.
While it may seem a daunting task, your professors, seminar instructors, and university coaches are all confident that your course work, previous fieldwork, and emerging knowledge about schools and classrooms have prepared you well to meet the challenge. Through conscientious planning to develop active and engaging lessons, teaching to ensure equity and understanding for all of your students, collaborating with other professionals and community members in the school, and constantly reflecting on your own practice as you strive towards improvement, you will emerge at the end of this experience a fully qualified and confident professional teacher.
As you continue to gain responsibility in the classroom and learn more about your students and the school, you should also reflect on your practice. Professional educators are able to evaluate their own and others’ teaching practices using a variety of assessment tools, including research and theory, in order to improve learning. Using the knowledge, theories and best practices from your coursework, you should develop both self-awareness and also awareness of the political and social contexts that influence schooling, placing you on a path toward teacher leadership.
As a developing teacher working hard to enact Temple’s Standards for Skillful Teaching, however, you will not be alone. You will have not only your cooperating teacher, but also your university coach to guide and support you. Remember that teaching is collaborative and dynamic and everyone’s teaching can constantly be improved. Both your cooperating teacher and your coach can be excellent resources to help you improve your teaching and to ensure that your students are learning.
As the semester continues, you will acquire more and more responsibility in your teaching assignment. You will begin your work in the classroom by working with individuals and small groups of students and gradually begin to teach lessons with your cooperating teacher and on your own. You will work with your cooperating teacher to co-plan in order to enable you to meet both the host school’s academic standards and Temple University’s teaching standards. Later on in the semester you will be teaching or co-teaching with your cooperating teacher for the entire day.
While it may seem a daunting task, your professors, seminar instructors, and university coaches are all confident that your course work, previous fieldwork, and emerging knowledge about schools and classrooms have prepared you well to meet the challenge. Through conscientious planning to develop active and engaging lessons, teaching to ensure equity and understanding for all of your students, collaborating with other professionals and community members in the school, and constantly reflecting on your own practice as you strive towards improvement, you will emerge at the end of this experience a fully qualified and confident professional teacher.
As you continue to gain responsibility in the classroom and learn more about your students and the school, you should also reflect on your practice. Professional educators are able to evaluate their own and others’ teaching practices using a variety of assessment tools, including research and theory, in order to improve learning. Using the knowledge, theories and best practices from your coursework, you should develop both self-awareness and also awareness of the political and social contexts that influence schooling, placing you on a path toward teacher leadership.
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