During my final semester at Concordia University, I had the joy of doing my student teaching. The first half of my student teaching experience took place at Lincoln Southeast High School in Lincoln, NE. I taught three sections of Oral Communications to 10th graders. It was an awesome experience and I learned so much.

While I was at Southeast, I taught both demonstration and informative speeches. These were both very fun units, but also very challenging. I had to teach and reteach the elements of these speeches several times. The lesson plans from both units were similar in style, but the informative was district required so I had to be sure to be more detailed and deliberate in my teaching. In my informative unit, I attempted to incorporate visual and audio learning. I tried to vary the lessons with video examples of these speeches. I had them write some notes, but I included a fun Kahoot quiz for them as well. This unit was tricky because it was quite a bit of “must-have” information. When it came to presenting their speeches, all three of my Oral Communications class periods did very well.

The following are a couple lesson plans and materials I used for my informative unit:  Informative Lesson 1, Informative Lesson 2,  Informative Lesson 3, Attention-Getter PowerPoint, Informative Requirements, and Informative Presentation

I learned a lot about teaching and myself as a teacher, but I found that the relationships I could build with the students were one of the most important parts of my time at Southeast. Daily I asked a question while taking attendance and the students would respond with an answer to the question to show they were present. Through these questions, I learned a lot about my students. This was a suggestion of my cooperating teacher, Ms. Michelle Stewart. I learned a lot from her and she truly cared about my growth as a teacher and a person. I am so blessed to have met so many amazing students and staff members at Southeast and they have helped me to become the teacher I am today.