My prac experience was as others before me and after me will also say a real learning curve. My major lesson was how explicit I need to be when giving instructions and asking questions. I became very self-sufficient in my prac and one of the most useful things I did was ask students for feedback on my own teaching. They have a surprising level of metacognitive ability – they know what they like! And they are a resource just waiting to be tapped into. Things I’d do differently:
- start with clear expectations of behaviour and outline these. No matter how silly you might think it is you need to be explicit!
- don’t change too much: 2 or 3 things that you do should be different to their normal teacher. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel cause they’ll get confused and that’s not good for anyone.
- Try to learn their names ASAP but change the format of the Facebook Get to Know you Profile
- Hilight the standards for my Supervising Teacher every lesson so that I’d get more meaningful feedback and they wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed.
What feedback I gained from my students or observing other more experienced teachers, I’ve added to my growing list of What Makes a Good Teacher?