Observation of teaching

Well what can I say? It could have gone better.

I want to preface by saying I had a group of kids I never see, in a different seating arrangement than normal, at a different time of day than they were used to seeing my co-op teacher. For some reason the 7th grade had to do practice testing and threw the whole day off. I found this out a couple of days before I had to teach my lesson. Bummer.

Really though, I had too much material for a 40 minute class. I need practice explaining the activity so students know exactly what I want. My co-op teacher wanted to and tried to help. Though I don't want it or need it, how do I say it?

It wasn't horrible though. The students participated and all of them worked on the activity and had something to add or say during the lesson. I encouraged them and so they were excited to participate. I really think they learned something too.

My teacher was encouraging to me as she said it was fine and she couldn't believe how well behaved and involved the students were because it was one of her hardest classes to keep quiet and focused. So that was nice. She planned on sticking with the lesson for her other classes.