Pedagogical Artifacts and Reflective Writing

Observation stage ~ Reflection Nº1

I chose this artifact because it represents the first impression that I had of this school. Years before I had the opportunity to do my first teaching practice, VISE 1, here, and I really loved it, because of the environment that the students and the teachers gave to the school.
I selected this artifact because I realized how important is to choose the place where you are going to be working for a whole semester and probably in a close future, for your entire working life. This stage relates to analizing the place itself, the teachers and the people that work there, the students and all the interpersonal relationships in there.
Here I learned how picking the place of practice would guide the way and the result of our teaching practice. Since I had such good experience the first time in David Trumbull School, there is no surprise that the second time was even better. Making good choices is fundamental for our working future as teachers. And I can say that I'm proud of my choice because the result were very good at the end; the students did great at every test and my guide teacher and supervisor were happy with my performances during the semester.
I compare this wonderful experience with others that I had in the past where I wasn't able to choose the school where I would do my teaching practice and at the end I wasn't happy with the results. And also with my colleagues' experiences I realized that I was on the right track. They were performing their teaching practices in schools with a reality very different to mine and for them it was stressful to work there.
My goal now is to get a job in a school with the same characteristics or, if possible, to stay and work in David Trumbull School.

Team-teaching stage. Reflection Nº2

This artifact is the team-teaching and it represents one of the important approaches to this professional practice in which I could realize how the students' behavior and environment of the school was in general.
The reason why I chose this artifact is because of the relationship between my guide teacher and I during this period. She was very kind and helpful during the entire time. She helped me planned my lessons, she handed me her teacher book and she taught me how to deal with the kids. We got along very well. That kind of relationship show during classes, that's team work.
This made me realize how teachers can guide your life, how important is to have a good teacher to guide your life! The teacher is responsable for the result (good or bad) of the student. My guide teacher was awesome, she always gave me feedback about my lessons, she lended me every material that she had so that I could do my class and she was super motivating. Even though she isn't a teacher (she is a translator), she is my inspiration for a good teacher.
What I plan to do next is when I have my own student teacher in my class I will be as supporting as my guide teacher was with me.

Teaching stage. Reflection Nº3

This artifact is teaching stage and it represents the time that I was in charge of the class, performing in front of it.
During this stage something really bad happened to me, personally, and it affected my perfomance for a couple of classes. Everyone could tell that I was different and my classroom management went literally "to hell". Kids started to get really noisy and didn't pay any attention to my class, if you can called it that. I got stressed and distracted, it was like I wasn't there! Until Miss Isabel visited my class and noticed that something was wrong with me. She gave me all the feedback I needed, but it wasn't enough.
This made me realize that sometimes you cannot deal with everything by yourself. So I looked for professional help, a psychologist who helped me to deal with this problem. It made me think that even though I had every lesson planned before hand and all the fun activites I could create for my students, my problems were bigger and all my plans went directly to the trash.
But with help and being constant you get through everything.