Intern Year

During this past week I taught straight from my teachers lesson plans on everything but written language and math with one student. I began to see how time management can become an issue because there is so much amount of work you need to fit into a 30-45 minute time block. I found myself going over a few minutes and targeted on that to be something I work on this coming week. Well two days. I need to learn to use my time wisely and plan accordingly. If I have a big activity I need to plan on it taking at least two class sessions to complete. This is just being realistic. I think I tend to try to plan for more then I have time for. In the weeks after Thanksgiving break I will work on that with my time left.
I also learned during this week of really teaching, is that if time gets out of hand in the students general education classroom then everything in the special education classroom gets out of whack. I have students come in late because they are doing work in their classroom, which is great, but it makes my time with them shorter and harder for me to work everything in. I need to work on being more flexible and just working with the time I have.
I would like to add in here the two day I have taught during Thanksgiving break, since Mon county had school. These two days I have been teaching from lesson plans I created for the whole day. This I thought would be hard but they more I get used to their time schedule and the level of the students, its not that difficult. I think I struggle most with figuring activities to do with so many different levels and grades during the day. This special education room, and any other special education room, has different students coming in at all times. As the teacher you must learn to teach to all of these different groups. I think in all I am going to walk away from these special education classes I have been a part of with a more in depth knowledge of how to plan for such different students, and how to differentiate instruction. I am glad I have had these experiences.