Week 5 Reflection

What I would like to reflect on from this past week is the working relationship that Mr. Taylor and myself have developed. We have all heard a lot lately about planning collaborative lessons with our mentor teachers. Mr. Taylor and I seem to natural incorporate a collaborative model in to our classes.

It starts from the time when we plan our lessons. Every Thursday we sit down together and plan the lessons for the next week. Right now I am teaching four of the classes and he is teaching the other two. This does not mean that I am solely responsible for my four classes or he for his two. We work together to decide what to do in each class.

This also applies to the way that we teach the classes. Most of the time I lead my classes and he leads his. However, we regularly ask one another to teach a part of the class. I may have a demonstration that he likes or he might have another way of explaining something. For example, one day I made a powerpoint for my classes and Mr. Taylor really liked the visuals so he had me go through them with his two classes.

I think that this type of collaborative model works really well. It allows the students to use both of us as resources. I think that this also benefits the students because the two of us may approach the same topic differently and different students may respond better to one of our styles. I remember hearing that planning collaborative lessons was hard, and while our model may not be perfect, it seems to come easily.