Elizabeth Bitterman

Student Teaching Reflection

DSU College of Education
May 3, 2017

Student Teaching Experience

On August 25th, 2016 I started my year-long student teaching experience at Madison

Elementary School in Madison, SD. I was place in Mrs. Balogh’s second grade classroom. I had

the chance to meet my cooperating teacher before school started and was looking forward to the

school year ahead.

I was lucky to have the opportunity to start the school year when the students started.

This helped me and the students gradually learn about the classroom together. I observed the

classroom’s rules and routines, expectations, transitions, and procedures being taught during the

first two weeks of school. I got to help Mrs. Balogh enforce the classroom rules during these first

couple of weeks. During week three I took over my first subject, science. I started my science

unit on seeds and plants and had a lot of fun creating fun lessons for the students. This unit

included the students experimenting on seeds, learning all the parts of a plant, and a pollination

activity.

The next subject I took over was spelling along with our morning meeting routine. I

taught spelling by teaching the spelling pattern of the week and having fun activities for the

students to practice their spelling words. The morning meeting routine consisted of talking about

the calendar, asking students for example number sentences that match the number of days they

had been in school, and doing daily oral language sentences. I liked having the chance to interact
with the students in the morning in this more informal setting. It really helped ease them into the

school day.

After taking over those aspects of the classroom, I took over taking students to specials

and lunch and math. In math I started teaching a unit about subtraction strategies. This is the unit

I did my teaching work sample over. During math time I did small group lessons where I would

teach the content to three different leveled groups. I enjoyed this because I had the chance to

work with students on more of a one-on-one basis. It also allowed me to differentiate my lessons

easily according to the students’ different levels.

During the next week I took over writing. Our writing time consisted of short mini-

lessons to teach a writing component or strategy and then having the students do independent

writing. While they were writing Mrs. Balogh and I met with students individually to have

writing conferences. I enjoyed getting the chance to read students writing and talking with them

about what they wanted to work on in their writing.

Lastly I took over teaching reading. During reading time I taught whole group reading

lessons as well as guided reading small group lessons. I loved working with guided reading

groups and helping them improve their reading skills. By adding reading, I had taking over

teaching every subject at this time. By this time, I felt much more confident as the classroom

teacher and was getting comfortable with my teaching. The chance to co-teach with Mrs. Balogh

was a great experience and we believe it benefited the students greatly. We had the chance to

meet with more students and groups during the week, which helped students get more one-on-

one attention and help.

 Because I had the opportunity to student teach for a full school year, my second semester

was a quite a bit different than my first. During my second semester, Mrs. Balogh and did a lot of

co-teaching. Right after Christmas break, we started by co-teaching math. We each had a math

group that we would meet with simultaneously and teach the same lesson to. This gave us the

ability to meet with smaller groups and teach the lesson quicker to all of the students.

Also after Christmas break Mrs. Balogh took back reading and writing to start off. She

took over these subjects for a few weeks until we had the chance to trade off weekly. Once we

got to this point, we would each teach a weekly unit every other week. This allowed each of us to

focus on certain subjects and units at different times. This gave me the ability to focus on my

lessons and make them truly great.

During my second semester, Mrs. Balogh and I taught science and social studies together.

We would plan our lessons and units together and taught the lessons together. One of us usually

was a leader and the other would add in when needed and help students. This gave us the chance

to both teach different ideas and for the students to hear both of our thoughts. I believe this

helped the students understand the content by learning with two different ideas or teaching styles

that were still similar to each other.

During my student teaching experience, I really had the chance to grow as a teacher and

learn about my own teaching style. I believe my classroom management improved greatly, but

will be something I will need to continually improve on throughout my teaching years. My

cooperating teacher and I really meshed well and were very much alike in our teaching styles.

She was an amazing person to learn from and was always there when I needed advice. I learned

to be firm and direct with students about my expectations because when they knew what I

expected and weren’t confused, they were on task and worked hard. I also learned to be prepared
for anything, such as technology not working, the students not understanding the lesson,

disruptions, and other aspects of a lesson that could possibly not go according to your plan.

Overall my student teaching at Madison Elementary was a very positive experience that I will

remember for many years to come.