Week+13+Experience


 * Nov. 29th, 2010 - Dec. 3rd, 2010**

As this Internship experience draws to a close, reality is setting in. I've taken the courses, written the papers, survived all the tests, I've even tried my hand and teaching the classes and yup - I've got what it takes to teach! I definitely belong in the classroom....now my focus shifts to finding one to call my own!

After attending the UCF "Now That You're Graduating" seminar this week, I picked up a lot of great tips - some new, some good reminders - about marketing myself as a new teacher and successfully finding employment. One of those was writing something called an elevator speech - a 30 to 60 summary of who I am, what I want to do, and how I can be a benefit to a school and its students. I tried mine out by emailing Mr. Larry Rowan at the county office to thank him for speaking at our seminar. Maybe he'll remember my name when he sees my substitute and instructional applications floating around the office...."Oh that's that crazy girl who told me she was Osceola County's next teacher of the year! Yes, gimme that application. I want here in here to interview asap!"

Another thing I took from the UCF seminar is that I want to pull some of the best artifacts from my TESOL notebook, Livetext, and especially some of the projects I've created during my Internship experiences together into a small portfolio of work that I can share during an interview. These will be the projects that helped me demonstrate how I'd meet accountability requirements, use technology in an innovative fashion, and overall wow my prospective future boss.

Some of the great questions I made notes of during the seminar that have really kept me thinking are:
 * How do you know you've made an impact during your student teaching? How can you tell you've been effective?
 * How would I like a school to support me as a first year teacher?
 * What are the roles of the paraprofessional(s) at "x" school?
 * How do you develop literacy in every child?

These are some of the hot button issues that principals and other high-ranking school officials are interested in, so it's a smart idea to familiarize myself with my feelings towards them and being able to provide clear, concise answers to them now. In addition, they are just the tip of the educational ice burg, so giving these ideas consideration will actually help to prepare me for others I might encounter.