 Step One: Get permission to teach at Benson Elementary from the principal and teacher.
|  Step Two: Learn how to write a lesson plan. Obstacle: I had never written a lesson plan before, and was not sure how to set one up. Success: My mentor taught me a basic outline for my lesson plans. It was easy to follow and helped a lot. |
 Step Three: Finding common core standards for my lessons. |  Step Four: Meet with Mrs. Allen to go over lesson plan subjects. Obstacle: I was not sure what to teach about at first so I met with Mrs. Allen to see if their was something she had in mind. Also, I wanted to see how she felt about some of my ideas for the lessons. |
 Step Five: Start writing lesson plans. Obstacle: Writing the lesson plans was the most difficult part of the project. Because it was my first time teaching a class I was not exactly sure how to go about it. Success: My mentor was able to help me out a lot with this and I was able to put together lessons that were to my liking. |  Step Six: Make power points for my lessons. |
 Step Seven: Make the activities for my lessons. |  Step Eight: Revise lesson plans as needed. Obstacle: I had a hard time getting the lessons exactly the way I wanted them. Success: I was very happy with the way my lessons turned out, and the students really enjoyed them. |
 Step Nine: Practice signing "Moses Goes to the Concert." Obstacle: I had to interpret this book so I could sign it to the class. It was an audio book so I just had to go along with what the narrator was saying. Success: Even though they didn't know the signs the students thought it was very cool how I could talk with my hands. |  Step Ten: Teach my first class, Deaf culture. Obstacle: Since this was my first class I was very nervous. I was worried it was not going to go well and that the students would not like it. Success: The lesson went along fairly smoothly and the students were engaged and had fun.  |
 Step Eleven: Teach my second class, the alphabet. Obstacle: Some of the students had a hard time positioning their finger the correct way to make the letters. I had to go around to each student and make sure they were doing it correctly, and if they were not I had to fix his or her hand.  |  Step Twelve: Teach my third class, Thanksgiving. Obstacle: The students were particularly talkative and rambunctious this day. They would not pay attention and were constantly interrupting me. Success: Students remembered most of the alphabet from the previous day.  |
 Step Thirteen: Teach my fourth class, colors and animals. Success: Because of the students behavior the day before this day I introduced a talking stick. Only the person holding the talking stick was allowed to talk. It did not keep them completely quiet but it helped a lot.  | My Mentor and I
My mentor was Miss Sweigart who is the American Sign Language teacher at West Johnston. She was a terrific mentor and helped me out a lot. Because she is a teacher she was able to help me with any questions I had about teaching my class. Such as, writing a lesson plan and suggesting different ways to present things to the students. Also, since she teaches ASL she was able to help me with anything I forgot about Deaf culture or teaching me any signs I did not know. She was always very encouraging and had great advice; I am glad I asked her to be my mentor.  |
Learning Stretch:
The first thing I had to learn was how to make a lesson plan. I had never taught a class before and was not sure how to start. Miss Sweigart, my mentor, helped me with this a lot; she was wonderful. I always had lots of questions and she always gave good advice. Trying to get the lesson plans ready before I had to teach my classes was difficult. I had to have the lesson plans written and all the activities and power points that went with them ready as well. This was the biggest thing I thought I would never get finished in time. However, all came out well and I was able to have everything ready to go on time. Another thing I learned was how to work well with young children. I was worried I was not going to do this well and they would not be able to learn what I was teaching them. The first day was tough, but once I got used to how they acted and how they thought I was able to communicate with them a lot easier.
