I’m having so much fun. I just spent about an hour and a half teaching some of the top students in my class how to do a demo about states of matter changes so that they can demo it with their classmates.

Tomorrow they’re going to practice the demo in my room so that they’re super prepared. And then they’re going to practice again on Friday so they’re doubly super prepared.

It’s like I’m pretty much having a dry run of my lesson plan to find any of the misunderstandings… then pushing the top students to truly, deeply understand the content, then giving them opportunities to practice skills of presentation, thinking on their feet, and professional explaining, then giving my whole class small group instruction opportunities because it’ll be one student teacher to every ten students. It’s fantastic.

During the day they actually teach the lesson, I’ll simply be rotating through the groups to give feedback to the student teachers who need it, and whispering in the ear of students who are having a harder time understanding. Amazing!

By the end of the year I’ll have trained a cadre of student teachers who will be masters at setting AIMS, breaking down standards, planning lessons, and checking for student misunderstanding. I can’t wait.