Student Teaching Reflections

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Student Teaching Chatboard

Student Teaching Reflections

by Laura Johnston

Sep 12, 2010

I am beginning my student teaching, and my professors are requiring us to write daily reflections about our experiences teaching. I have been writing daily reflections for my clinicals for years, but I've never really found them that useful. How important are these daily reflections in the long run? Will they be useful to me when I'm actually teaching in my own classroom?

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T.Davies Hi Laura, If you are required, then obviously you will have to write reflections. Personally, writing a teaching journal became a waste of my precious time very quickly. I have been teaching now for 16 years and I do not use any sort of reflection journal, nor have I in the past 15 years! What I have found helpful is to write post-it notes to mysel...See More

Sep 12, 2010

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Zodea Oh how I remember those days.

The only time I have written reflections is when they have been required! I needed a portfolio to get my teaching license then I needed another portfolio to move from a temporary to a professional license.

I agree that they are not that useful. I do not write any sort of reflections down. If were to...See MoreOh how I remember those days.

The only time I have written reflections is when they have been required! I needed a portfolio to get my teaching license then I needed another portfolio to move from a temporary to a professional license.

I agree that they are not that useful. I do not write any sort of reflections down. If were to write things they would be along the lines of Problem #4 was worded poorly and only 3 out of 24 students could answer problem #12.

What I try to do now is change those assignments immediately so that hopefully next year doesn't have the same problem. If I need to add something to my PowerPoint notes I do that right away instead of forgetting about it (again) next year. I might add a sticky note to make sure I have taught concepts X, Y and Z before giving out that particular assignment.

So you just have to do it. Say what went well, what areas you were comfortable with, what areas you would like to see changed. Were the students engaged, asking questions, and enjoying themselves? or were they bored, glum and frustrated?

I would look at this sort of an assignment the same way I looked at writing letters to my son when he went off to boot camp. I just wrote anything and everything that popped into my head because after the first two days I didn't have anything more to say! But he wanted LOTS and LOTS of letters so I got very good at just writing things off the top of my head. He probably knew more about my life those 2 months then he did while he was living at home!

Now ultimately you may need to prepare an actual portfolio. I'm not sure how the different states work. You may need to include things like "this lesson was used to demonstrate how I used multiple learning strategies by offering the students a choice on how they would share the results of their research with their classmates" in your reflections/portfolio.

Good luck!

Just like writing detailed lesson plans quickly falls by the way side, so does writing out your reflections. It's just a hoop we need to jump through.

Zodea

Sep 12, 2010

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