First off, I have to say I won the student teacher lottery.  My student teacher @ochoajon8 came into his summative experience ready to take over his own classroom.  I discovered that all of my self preparation to have difficult conversations was completely unnecessary and I needed to think completely differently about this process. Here’s what we’ve come up with.

I observe Jon formally 1-2 classes per day in a shared Evernote notebook so he has my notes to augment his own on how the class went.  I format my feedback with these three headings:

1. Lesson notes – this includes word choice, general observations (positive and things to improve)
2. Reflective Questions – These are questions designed to get him to think about things that we need to think about.  Some have been about our planning process, some have been thinking about the very positive things that are happening and how to make them happen more often.
3. I notice you’re improving on… – What has made Jon so great is that his reflective practice is already well established.  He shares his own personal growth goals with me and I let him know where I’m seeing growth.  He’s great at self monitoring, but a second set of eyes is always a good thing.

 

Keeping all of this in a shared notebook in Evernote has turned this process into a two way dialogue about how the day went.  It was difficult to talk about the specifics of the day before I started taking detailed notes and sharing through Evernote.  In addition, the time constraints of our day made it difficult to plan and have the conversations we needed to have.  Seeing his fresh perspective in his responses to my feedback has turned this into an extremely symbiotic relationship.

 

How have you framed your formal relationship with your student teachers?

What ways can we improve this process for the good of all?