Don't Reinvent the Wheel!

What I have learned from my Student Teaching thus far :)

Yesterday at school I began working on planning a social studies unit for next next Monday. It will be 4 lessons (half hr) and 1 final assessment. Working on formative assessments, too. I only had the student textbook, and I had some great ideas going!...

But then, I got stuck! I had so many ideas. and it was hard to keep everything aligned, and I was not at all sure what to focus on. Here comes the "I can't do this" mantra! That began last night. I certainly prayed about it this morning!

Today, I wanted to be positive and upbeat and encourage the other teachers,  but I was so worried about these lessons that I am sure they could tell I was tense. In these moments I also tend to shrink inside myself and not know how to ask for help. But by some miracle I took my teacher's suggestion and started talking with Mrs. K. She lead me to Mrs. M, who has the teacher's history resources! Needless to say that planning is going much better right now!!

I am planning in a backwards model- assessment first (done), and activities/objectives/

standards next. The manuals show me how different test questions align with content objectives. Plus I have two writing questions that align with language objectives: basically, main idea and details and making comparisons (--> common core ELA standards). I am going to try to find/create activities that will best help students be prepared for the test and master both types of objectives. And I am going to try to make these tasks as collaborative as possible!!

I know there will still be freak-out moments where I feel very overwhelmed and want to give up, because I think "how can I ever possibly do ALL this?" But i know God is bigger than all my worries. He will be faithful and help me- but I can only focus on one task and one day at a time! (Not that I won't be doing many many tasks per day ;) ) It's only a failure if I don't try, right?

Reflection: Clearly, I need to scaffold the way I learn about teaching! "I am going to do it all from scratch as a novice teacher!" How about, nooo :) ;)