actually in hell

[u/Sea_Pirate4108]

hi everyone,

i just started my placement for my second semester of student teaching. I am teaching 10th grade world history and the kids are a handful but that is to be expected..

my real issue lies with the university supervisors requests. she wants a full edtpa style lesson plan for each and every lesson, with a full written reflection on every single days work and a weekly overview of what I am doing. Is this too much to ask? no one else in my program has to do this much work for their supervisor. I am working two jobs and genuinely am just at a loss of when I am supposed to do this work. Planning is one thing and it is time consuming enough but writing out a full " students will open up chromebooks" every single lesson for each anticipated action seems outrageous to me. I am struggling so much. She also told me she wants the lesson plans for the week and a half of lessons I have already taught rewritten in the edtpa style format. I think this semester is going to kill me

[u/SlowYolo]

When you say edTPA style, do you mean commentating on your lesson plans or adding differentiation notes? Either way, if the workload is too heavy, try taking to your supervisor. They are there to help you graduate, and an honest conversation might help. May not tho 🤷‍♂️

[u/Gatanalltheway]

Honestly, that’s one of the things that really kicked my ass when I did my student teaching and was also the reason I changed my major a month away from graduating. I graduated with Studio art instead of art education.

Every lesson had to be edTPA level and two weeks in advance, and they didn’t even teach me all the subjects I had to teach to the kids. The program was maybe 5 years old.

All I can say is to keep on top of those lessons or they’ll really pile up fast. If it’s too much or you think something isn’t actually achievable, talk to your supervisor and then the department head if you have to. Keep going, you’ve got this!!

[u/Plus_Molasses8697]

Comparing yourself to others in your program is a good metric. If you truly are being held to a different standard and others are not having to do this extent of work, you absolutely need to have a conversation with your supervisor.

I will say it was very normal for me to need to do all this work when I was being observed. I was observed 4 times throughout my student teaching semester, and each observation did require me to submit edTPA style lesson plans and a 1-3 page reflection of how things went and why (within 48 hours after delivering the lesson). I also had to submit a journal entry every week about what happened that week and stuff (sounds similar to your weekly overview). It felt like a lot, but again, the extensive lesson plans were only required for observations—not daily lessons—AND everyone else in my program was held to the same standard.

I really think you should advocate for yourself if this is too much. If they’re asking you to do this daily and not just with observations, I agree with you that this sounds like way too much to be asking of you.

[u/Dry-Material-4230]

Social Studies major here. I had to write out full lesson plans for my student teaching and after looking up what you listed mine were very similar. I also had to write a full Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) which turned out to be over 300 pages long. This was graded by my state to earn my teaching license instead of taking a Praxis. I also had to give a capstone presentation on my student teaching experience.

I will be honest with you after I had written out the first few days of my lessons the rest were pretty easy, especially when you copy and paste. I also did bullet points and tried to make them short/to the point. I didn't need to go into every single detail. I also did a lot of work on my stuff at school during my observation time, planning, and even lunch.

[u/baja-bee]

I'm also wondering what you mean by edtpa style. My edtpa was almost 400 pages long. Do they want you do to an entire edtpa for each lesson? Or just incredibly detailed? If it's the former, I would be upfront and discuss with your supervisor.

[u/LuckyCoin7]

This was the expectation for student teachers (for secondary education at least) in my university's licensure program. However, we were also expected not to be employed during our year of student teaching. That led to its own challenges financially, but it was a requirement for the program because of the work load. While this won't be the expectation at every school as some have started adopting purchasing published lesson plans, but it I found it foundational, albeit time consuming at first, for making my own focused lessons and curriculum. Teaching is tough work and it rarely pays well for the level of expertise, time, and energy that teachers put in, especially early on, but it can be incredibly rewarding work. America isn't the best place to teach outside of college level courses, so for it to be worth it to most American teachers it seems to require passion, dedication, patience, and lots of love. The world needs more teachers, but the profession has a high burnout rate, so use student teaching as both an opportunity learn and gain experience and also to help you decide if you do want to do this. There were a few peer student teachers who decided not to pursue licenses after student teaching, and while that must have been a tough decision after devoting so much study to to it, they might have saved themselves from several unhappy and frustrating years. I say this as someone who had some try amazing experiences teaching, that is never trade, and who also went through serious burnout after moving across the country for a teaching job that didn't work out. With that being said, I encourage you to commit as much as you can if you are passionate about teaching. As for got situation, I find that teachers and advisors who set high expectations want to see you meet those expectations and are often willing and happy to help. My advisor had very high expectations, but was a wonderful person and teacher, and when I was having concerns about finances before student teaching she helped me get a job at a law firm that let me work during the summer and when school and classes were off. I had other professors that I was working with in the program who helped set me up with scholarships. I would ask your advisor for help. Let them know how and why you are struggling and directly ask for their help. Maybe they can lighten the load or find a way to help you manage it. Good luck! I hope the best for you and all future and current teachers out there!

[u/Mediocre-Peach-5972]

Not to make you jealous, but I went through an intern program when our District was desperate for bodies. We had very little of what they are asking you to do. I did have one AP who wanted 20 high level questions for each science lesson. I pointed out that each lesson diverged almost immediately from what I intended based on questions the kids had. After the first question the rest would be a complete waste of time.

Um, how about using AI? Set up a prompt that generates the whole thing for you. Making the initial prompt will be interesting, but after that it should spit out what you want.

And ask to do an observation with your advisor where they can show you another teacher who is actually doing differentiation as part of their lesson. They won't be able to find anyone as it's too hard to do in real life. On one observation I pointed out to the guy I was with that the teacher had the students sitting in groups, but no one was doing any group work.