Fall 2013, I lived and taught in Pittsburgh, PA. I taught at Conroy which is an all special needs school with students ages 5-21. My second placement was at Langley K-8, where I taught art to 4-8th grade students. Never having taught special needs students at first it was an eye opener experience, but I taught since day one all of the classes. Being thrown into an unfamiliar situation was a blessing in disguise! I loved my first placement school so much. It lead me to postponing my graduation once again to pick up a special education minor and get certified! My second placement was really an eye opener for me as well. The class sizes were enormous and not a minute to spare between classes. I am typically a very organized person, and you had to be organized to have a classroom that was efficient. I brought my own teaching beliefs into the classroom to help give suggestions as to how to make the classes I ran go smoother. Greeting each students as they came in with something to do when they first sat down, having materials already on tables the students needed to use, along with having papers laid out so after I was done going over the goals for the day the students could get up and move around to get their projects was something that worked for me. The most important thing at both settings was ensuring every class I worked one-on-one with each student to give them undivided attention and see if I could help them at all. Building relationships with the students and getting on their level really allows for the student-teacher relationship to build and help to deal with classroom management problems. Check out the domain evidence from both placements for an insight as to what went on in both placements and how I had two very different experiences in my 16-weeks in Pittsburgh Public School Systems.
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