Heather's Teaching Post-1

Teaching so far has been SO much fun. I just love being in the theatre classroom with the students and feeding off their energy. It’s amazing. I’ve found that balancing instruction and activity is a lot easier on paper than it is in real life. I’ve realized that when I’m planning things seem so much different than they do in th classroom. I feel like I get into a rut of planning the same kinds of lessons over and over again. Instruction, activity, discussion, instruction activity, instruction, and I want to get out of that rut. I think that being in the classroom is helping me to understand the different dynamics that can be played in a theatre classroom. There can be some days when instruction can be longer and activities can be shorter, and days when activities can take more time, as long as what is going on in the classroom is building and the students are engaged and learning.
It’s also interesting as we implement lessons to see which students respond better to different things, some students love discussion, some love independent work, some love performing, some planning, others writing. It’s so fun to see all these different learning styles in process and try to plan and implement activities specifically for them.
I sure am learning and growing in this experience and learning what I need to work on as a teacher and what my strengths are. It sure helps to have wonderful co-teachers to learn from!