One of the most valuable lessons I learned from my student-teaching experience was to utilize resources available to me when I needed help. My cooperating teacher was extremely supportive and provided me with a great deal of help and guidance. The other biology teacher in the school was also a big help to me. She actually went out of her way to help me, and allowed me to observe her classes on a regular basis. It was really helpful to observe some female teachers this semester, and see how they handle classroom management, because both of my cooperating teachers this year were males, and I think it makes a big difference with how students can be handled sometimes. I was at a rural high school, where some female teachers had a hard time getting respect from their male students, but the teachers I observed all handled their classes really well, and I learned a lot from them.

I never had the opportunity to use resources from the community in my classroom, but I think it is extremely important to get the community involved with lessons in school. In our thematic unit, we discussed the value of bringing in guest speakers, and having the families of our students become involved in their child's learning. I am looking forward to having my own classes next year, and becoming more involved with the parents of my students. The only parent-teacher conferences I attended this year were during my 7th grade Life Science internship, and it was very interesting to observe how parents behaved when their children were being discussed. Usually though, the only parents that showed up to conferences were the ones whose children were doing very well in class, so I never saw any major issues being discussed.

In my content literacy course, we created brochures to high light our teaching and learning philosophies, and this also addresses my views on community involvement in the classroom.