Overwhelmed, and Emotionally Exhausted

I'm so sorry if this post seems rushed, I am running out of hours in the day to do things. 

If I tried to sum up this past week in one word, I would have to say it was exhausting. If I was able to do it in two I would say it was overwhelmingly exhausting. My students were so good this past week and I am very supported by my cooperating teacher and the other teachers in the building. I can’t imagine what I would be like to not have that kind of support while student teaching. My problem started with my lack of emotional preparation for student teaching. I failed to remember that real life would continue to take place during student teaching. So not only was this week and weekend full of lesson planning and grading but it was also full of class work for Monday, wedding planning with a close friend and friends who I rarely see these days. How does anyone keep sane during this process?

Through everything this week, I was still learning so much every day. The first major thing I learned was that I need to be writing on the board what my students should be learning for that day. Most schools in Illinois require you at least put the standard your teaching for the day on the board, but the school I am at doesn’t. I was talking to a SPED teacher and she says that it helps the students and the teacher if you can reference back to it. Besides just putting the standard on the board I should be writing the tentative schedule for the day. It helps the students prepare for what we will be doing and keeps all of us on track.

A major problem in psychology is that students don’t have much prior knowledge. I learned the best prior knowledge I can play off of is the prior knowledge brought in by science and math. Luckily this week that really helped. I had my students creating their own psychological study/experiment and it helped that my students knew the scientific method already as well as a little about independent and dependent variables. I played on this prior knowledge to help me show my students how a psychologist would use these methods to do experiments/studies.

Another huge lesson I learned this week is that my students need very structured instruction. They get overwhelmed with instruction that is written out in one paragraph which goes along with a rubric. I ended up having to redo a project sheet the day before my students started working on it because I knew the first sheet was going to be too overwhelming for them. This project went off very nicely and I don’t think it would have if I hadn’t redone the assignment sheet. I gave one section at a time for my students to do, so I wouldn’t overwhelm them and played to as many learning styles as I could in the project. I allowed some students to type the project up and others to write it. If they wanted to draw pictures to better show me what they meant they were also allowed. This helped several of my students who struggle with instructions and expressing what they know.

As for my goals for this past week;

1. I did figure out a better way for my students to do vocab and a better way to assess their vocab knowledge and even though my cooperating teacher didn't like it as much he could see how it was helping. 
2. I wasn't falling as behind as I though I was last week but I am still about a day behind where I wanted to be. Timing is very much a work in progress and I'm praying it gets better.
3. I had a few students call me out on learning their names, I think i'm up to knowing about seventy-five percent of their names, which for me is pretty good. 
4. I will be honest my social life really messed with me this week, I really need to learn how to prioritize. Its just hard, i'm a social person and I want to see my friends, especially because in December I may not see them for a while. 
5. As for procrastination, well grading is done, homework for school, not as done and planning needs to take more a priority but is going okay. I would like to be more ahead with planning but I find it hard to plan too far out. Procrastination is still very much a work in progress.
6. As for eating healthy, I found a app on my phone that tracks what I eat and when I exercise. This has been about the only goal that went amazing this week.
7. My relationship with God is doing amazingly, this week has been one of those weeks where I was forced to realize just how much I needed him. 
8. Staying sane has now been gone for about two weeks, lets hope I get my sanity back soon.
9. I think this week being the best teacher i can be is just going to be, working on my self emotionally. If my students teacher is not emotionally sound they are not getting the best teacher.
10. I can't even begin to think about finding a job even though I know I need to be doing stuff. I need to sign up for some tests though. 

My two goals for next week are going to be: 

1. Prioritizing life and work to allow myself some emotional stability. 
2. Starting my action research work for school. 

Please be praying for me, I really need it.

~Abby