Virtual teaching

 Teaching virtually this semester was something that was very odd to say the least but I think we all managed to make the best out of the circumstances. I taught 3 lessons virtually and did my final lesson last week; my small group literacy lesson. I would have loved to teach these lessons in the field and had that interaction with my students but I can say that I did learn a lot through the experience. I feel like I thought more about how I could improve my lesson as I was teaching because I was unable to have that interaction with the kids and with it being silent, I noticed what I was saying on a deeper level.  I really enjoyed watching the discussion videos for labs because we were able to view other seasoned teachers and some of our fellow GSU educators. I picked up on a lot of unique strategies to make my lesson more engaging and hands on. I find it very fun to have students interact and answer in different ways for example in my small group literacy lesson we did "synonym rolls" and if they agreed with their peers answer, I had them roll their arms up "full of dough" if they agreed or roll their arms down "full of dough" if they disagreed. I think its going to be one of my favorite things to come up with unique things for my students to keep engaged and on task. Learning is meant to be fun and will provide a greater benefit for students when they are engaged. A lot of my lessons were so concrete and boring but through this experience; the feedback from peers, CT, and my professors really helped guide my lessons to be more interactive. I had more fun planning my lessons and teaching them which resulted in a better grade with teaching my lesson. I still have some work to do with my confidence but overall I can say I am a better teacher from the beginning of the semester until now. I am looking forward to the final step; student teaching! We did it guys, hang in there :) a couple more weeks!