Mary Redden

Domain 2 Reflection  

The Classroom Environment

Year 3

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This year has also brought me to a new level and age of student that I haven't taught before.  I'm used to instructing mostly 9th graders, as special education students generally take living environment as freshmen.  Starting out my day first period with Marine Science 11th and 12th graders, and then ending my day with 11th grade regents chemistry students has been quite a switch from my typical fresh-out-of-middle-school students I'm used to getting.  

 

Our Marine group was mostly juniors and seniors but they were a great group of kids and we enjoyed completing web quests, virtual labs, and group projects together.  My co-teacher is the Marine Science expert, and I learned a lot from the assignments we put together.  What I enjoyed most about the class was that the students could pick their own topics of research to design their projects around.  One of our projects involved the students choosing a topographical area of interest and designing a brochure about it.  The students enjoyed it, and I enjoyed teaching a more student-centered project-oriented curriculum which is very different than regents classes.  Marine Science is an elective which allows for more student-driven working tasks.  

 

I really enjoyed the maturity of the students as well as their ability to complete projects without step-by-step monitoring from a teacher.  That's not something you can really do so immediately with a freshman class.  The difference between freshmen and juniors & seniors is night and day in terms of independence and motivation.  Also, I had most of these students two years ago as freshman in living environment.  The difference two years can with some of them, mostly the boys, has been remarkable.  One of the highlights of my year came while giving a glowing report to a parent at conferences of one of my current juniors who had been one of my SORs two years ago.  Two years ago he had been suspended for a month, and we had had several full meetings that year trying to get him back on track with his grades as his transition into the high school had not been the smoothest ride.  Now, two years later, he's doing fabulously well, getting all his work done, handling relationships with peers and authority figures beautifully, and he's getting to do what he wants to do at tech the second part of the day.  I've loved being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel for some of these kids.  The metamorphosis with him has been really beautiful to see.