I'm about a week late posting this, it seems.
For the initial two-week period:
Student data:
While I have been consistently working with students in all four classes I'm working in right now, I haven't felt like I've done so in a consistent enough manner to pass out exit cards and expect them to accurately reflect the quality of what I'm doing. Mostly I'm working with small groups (though I have taught several full days in the acting classes I'm working with). I fully believe that exit cards will be a fantastic method of data collecting once I'm teaching full time, but at the moment they're not an ideal mesh with what I'm doing in the classroom.
I have been working on student engagement (one of my research areas) by focusing on relationship building. I've got almost all of the students' names down, and I've been actively seeking out one-on-one conversations with as many as possible. This has helped out a lot when I go back to work with them later, and has proven invaluable when it comes to putting together groups for exercises in the theatre classes.
Adult data:
Charleen has not been able to observe me as of yet, so I'm a bit lacking in that feedback category.
Scott and Beth seem pleased with what I'm doing in their classes. I'm gradually taking on more and more responsibility, helping to plan lessons and working with small groups of students and individuals in the English classes and organizing whole-class activities in the acting classes.
A retired SAHS teacher passed away Wednesday night, and Beth was pretty upset about it, so I offered to take over the two acting classes on Thursday afternoon (we spoke at lunch, so I had about 5 minutes to figure out what to do for the day). I led the classes in some activities and games that related to what they've been working on, and everything went smoothly. I'd say the fact that Beth was willing to let me just jump in and take over is a huge vote of confidence from her.
Personal Data:
At the moment, I'm averaging between 7 and 7.5 hours of sleep a night. I've finally begun to adjust to the schedule and find myself getting tired earlier, which has made falling asleep much easier. I've been consciously focusing on getting as much sleep as possible because I spent the first two weeks dozing a bit in the afternoon classes, but that has pretty much gone away now.
Attitude-wise, I tend to feel pretty good throughout my teaching days. I'm feeling less tired in the mornings and most often feel "good" in my surveys. "Bored" is a feeling that began to creep in a bit there, too, but now that I'm becoming more and more actively involved it's not as much of an issue.
My weekly reflections tend to focus on specific, memorable instances. This week it was taking over the acting classes spur of the moment, last week I reflected a lot on how well I was getting to know the students and some specific conversations I've had with them, and the first week I spent a lot of time thinking and reflecting about the conference I attended with the English department on Monday. Mostly positive experiences so far, which is awesome.
