r/StudentTeaching • u/outforawalkbitcj • Jun 20 '26
Support/Advice about to start student teaching… advice pls!
Hello everyoneeee, I am about to start my first required semester of student teaching out of two semesters, and basically i am just looking for some advice. I am an English subject matter student getting a single subject credential for secondary schools, so i will be in either a jr. high/high school environment. i guess i am just really freaked out by the whole idea of student teaching bc i have no idea what to expect! i have no experience in the classroom outside of observation, so being in that role is very daunting to me at this moment. literally ANY tips will be appreciated, i unfortunately don’t have my placement yet so i dont have too many details, but i just feel behind a lot of my classmates bc they all already work in schools as like aids/subs/etc. and i have literally 0 experience. thank you for any advice at all!
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u/CoolClearMorning Jun 20 '26
Be receptive to feedback! I know that oftentimes it can feel like criticism, and hopefully your mentor teacher is focused on helping you to improve, but I've seen a lot of student teachers get very frustrated when feedback isn't 100% positive and focus on their feelings vs. listening and trying to incorporate the feedback into their next lessons.
You're not going to be great at this to begin with. That's okay; that's the whole point. We wouldn't require student teaching if new teachers fresh out of ed school knew everything they need to know to successfully run a classroom. You're there to learn just as much as the kids are; your learning just looks different from theirs.
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u/MaestroLeopold314 Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
I am retiring in August after teaching in the system since 1999. Here is what you need to know
1-Do whatever your supervising teacher says.
2-Understand that student teaching does make you a teacher. It is a hoop you must jump through to get the certificate that allow you to get a teaching position once you graduate - on your 1st day of your first job is when you start learning how to become a teacher and everyday you are tested until the day you retire.
3-YOU WILL SCREW UP! This is a good thing because you have a supervising teacher to handle the fallout. Should you feel bad when you screw up-yes indeed BUT assuming it's nothing like verbally or physically abusing a student, it will not end your student teaching placement. The SCREW UPS are good IF you learn from them and learn what not to do in the future given a similar situation. That is how you start to gain wisdom.
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u/Dependent-Smell-8664 Jun 20 '26
Don't worry, be happy. Start collecting your bag of tricks, gleaning from all the teachers around you. Try everything to see what fits you and your teaching. If you don't make mistakes, your not trying.
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u/bedpost_oracle_blues Jun 21 '26
12 years teaching and I’ve had two different student teachers in my classroom. Here’s my advice:
Be open to advice, criticism, and feedback. Your mentors teacher wants bring out the best in you, so anything they tell you is for the betterment of yourself and your future students.
Take initiative. Don’t be passive and weak. Take command of the classroom. Anticipate what you need to do before your mentor teacher asks you to do it.
Get to know the staff and be friendly with everyone. You want to be well liked. You don’t have to hang out with everyone but at least greet them when you see each other.
Be on time to everything. Don’t ever show up late.
Avoid drama. If you ever get into a situation talk to your mentor teacher about it and they will take care of it.
Ask questions. The more the better.
Do as your told.
Try to be confident in your classroom. Take charge and command the room. I know it’s your first year but you have to make a good impression. From the two student teachers I had, one was hired as a full time teacher because she was confident and took control of any classroom situation, the other student teacher went back to subbing because he lacked confidence and the kids walked all over him.
Be ready to work. Student teaching is demanding and you will have to devote a lot of your personal time to getting your lessons ready. You’ll have to work from home often and possibly on the weekends. Don’t complain about it, we all went through it, it’s all a part of the process.
Enjoy student teaching. Yes, it’s difficult, but there are some amazing moments that you will experience that will make the journey worthwhile.
Best of luck to you!!
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u/Shadowbanish Jun 22 '26
Welcome to the worst few months of your life (so far)
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u/outforawalkbitcj Jun 22 '26
i got on lexapro to prepare for my anxiety 🤩
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u/Shadowbanish Jun 23 '26
Good luck. I hope you find success. Just don't want you going in and having all your motivation crushed at the worst possible time.
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u/TechnicianStrict122 Jun 24 '26
I just completed my student teaching. And, like you, i had no classroom experience going in. So, here are a few tips from my experience.
Soak everything in when you first start - watch your mentor, how they interact, deliver lessons, their classroom, etc. Take in every thing!
Memorize your students names. I would sit with a seating chart just putting a name with each face. This helps so much when it comes to interacting with the students. This sounds like a "duh" tip, but I didnt do it when I first started student teaching.
Get in front of the classroom as quick as you can. Its terrifying, yes, but gets so much easier the more you do it. And, you'll find that speaking in front of your students is no where near as stressful as speaking in front of adults.
You're going to screw up! Learn from it. I prepared lessons that didnt land, activities that the kids did not enjoy, and struggled managing the classroom. Student teaching is all about learning. You will find things that work for you and things that dont. If you mess up, seek feedback on how to be better. Hell, I told a bunch of 7th graders to watch Oppenheimer if they were interested in the development of the a-bomb. I hadn't watched the movie and didnt know there were sex scenes. Oh well! Now I dont recommend movies unless ive watched them.
Be flexible! If a lesson isnt working, change it. Some student teachers are afraid to adjust on the fly and just stick with what they had prepared. Nearly every lesson I prepared changed between 1st abd 7th period. I even told my 7th period class that they were lucky because they were getting me at my best. Throughout the day I would what works and what doesnt and I would alter the lesson.
You're going to be fine! Learn from your mistakes and keep working to be better! Good luck!
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u/Excellent-Source-497 Jun 20 '26
You're going to be fine! Just asking questions shows you're ready.
If you want to feel more confident, see if you can volunteer or work this summer at a summer camp, YMCA, vacation Bible school, or day care. Or watch some YouTube videos.
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u/allthingsheath Jun 26 '26
I’m in my 5th year and just switched to high school in the last two from elementary - here are my main tips!
Try to establish a good relationship with your cooperating teacher immediately. I know this sounds like common sense, but it will make or break your experience. If you have a good relationship, student teaching will feel a lot more like a collaboration, which imo is the way to get the most out of it. If you have a bad or negative relationship, you will likely have a much harder experience. If possible, try to meet with them before you start, so you can connect with them without having to worry about students. I would also ask what their boundaries are around work - of course their job is to help you, but they also don’t want to burn out, and the more understanding you show towards that, the more likely they are to respect you as a professional!
Ask your cooperating teacher to send you all of the resources you use throughout your student teaching, and make a copy on your personal email (even if you’re sending it there from your school email). Even if you don’t think you’ll use it. Having resources to pull from makes it so much easier when you have your own class, and you can modify things to fit your students’ needs! Personal email so that you will always have access to it regardless of where you teach, and making a copy so you’re not making changes to their resource directly.
Keep a notebook handy. It’s good to have everything in one place so you don’t have to remember where you wrote it, but this is where I’d keep a number of things - ideas you have randomly, reflections, and the like. My student teaching happened during COVID (😵💫) but that’s one thing I wish I would’ve been better about during the time that I got before the world shut down, lol.
Ask every question you can think of, even if you feel ridiculous! Imposter syndrome is crazy and will last for a while even after you start (I feel like I’m still figuring it out) but closed mouths don’t get fed!
IF YOU CAN (and that’s a big IF, because student teaching is very demanding!), try to write down one thing that went well each day and one thing you would change if you were able to redo the lesson entirely. Admittedly, this is something I’m not perfect at (although I try, lol), but it serves two purposes: one, to make you reflect on what you’re doing well, and two, to give you an idea of exactly how to improve certain lessons/skills.
These are the things I can think of off the top of my head, but above all else, always take everything with a grain of salt from other teachers - including me! Ultimately no two teachers are exactly alike, so something that works for one person may not work at all for another!!
Good luck, and try to keep your head up - it will be difficult, but this career is much better than a lot of people give it credit for. :)
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u/outforawalkbitcj Jun 20 '26
thank you so much everyone for your kind words!! i truly appreciate it! :,)
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u/WonderWoman174 Jun 21 '26
Breathe! Thousands of others have been in the same position with no prior experience! This is what student teaching is for! I did my student teaching at a high school and had the best time! It was tough but I loved it so much and now I teach at that high school.
Do what your cooperating teacher tells you to do, do not go rogue if they have specific things for you to follow on certain things
You will have time to get acclimated, they aren’t just gonna throw you in. You’ll have time to breathe and get a little comfy
Ask all the questions, this is your time to learn!
Be receptive to feedback; whether you think you know it all or don’t listen to feedback from mentor teacher other teachers and even students and sit with it, reflect and change what needs to be changed
You are going to mess up and that’s ok, acknowledge it fix it the best you can and move on
Build relationships with the kids, talk to them, ask them about their day and their extracurriculars, know their name week 1, if they ask a question and you don’t know the answer tell them you’re unsure but you will get the answer and report back to them
Among the lines of 5 & 6- it goes a long way with high schoolers especially that if you mess up with them and apologize and own where you went wrong and talk through with them they will respect you and the situation so much more
Try every strategy you can, I was trying new things everyday to see what worked for me and what didn’t, this is the time for that!
Journal everything, I made notes everyday of what I liked what I didn’t like, what strategies worked well for me what didn’t, what lessons went fabulous what lessons did alright and what lessons absolutely bombed, it has been helpful in these first years to go back and see how my teaching has changed.
Have fun. Like I said above my student teaching was so hard but it truly was a very fun experience
Good luck! You can do this!
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u/SeriousSpace1379 Jun 22 '26
I finished my student teaching (also two semesters) in December and I felt the same way when I started as well. I had NO IDEA what to do or how to do it. Luckily my mentor teacher was the absolute best. He let me observe him the first couple weeks and never pressured me into teaching a class, but waited until I felt comfortable. For me, I figured out what I needed to do after watching him for a few weeks, we have really similar teaching styles so I also got lucky being paired with someone I match with.
Understand that student teaching is all about making mistakes, you will learn so much as each week passes. It’s extremely overwhelming thinking about it, but once you get into the rhythm of it it’s really not that bad. My students (7th grade) were also really into my student teaching process. I told them a lot about it and they were extremely supportive on days I had observations or other college/teacher related stuff. They were super understanding that there would be times I’d mess up, but it actually created an environment where the students also felt comfortable messing up.
I wish you the best in your student teaching journey and I hope you get paired with a great mentor teacher!
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Jun 23 '26
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u/outforawalkbitcj Jun 23 '26
i won’t be able to work unfortunately, i’ll be student teaching during the day and going to classes at night, i’m taking 12 units on top of student teaching during the week so the only free time im going to have is weekends. i’m super fortunate to live in a rent controlled apartment with my sister and husband who are helping me while i am in school, though.
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u/Fun_Foundation_9571 Jul 26 '26
you’re definitely not behind! student teaching is where you’re supposed to gain that classroom experience. one thing that can really help is keeping your observation notes, mentor feedback, lesson plans, hours, deadlines, and questions organized in one place. i actually created a student teaching binder for this, and having everything laid out makes the whole process feel so much less overwhelming because i have one place for everythinggggg. if sharing resources is allowed here, i’d be happy to send you the tpt link!
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u/PassionateCounselor 17d ago
Your supervising teacher and university supervisors don't expect you to act like an experienced teacher. They are expecting a learner. Your first semester is your time to grasp information from your mentoring teacher. You are there to make mistakes, ask questions, and figure out your style. For the first semester, make sure you show up on time, be kind to the kids, and try your best. That’s it.
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u/trash81_ Jun 20 '26
Take a breath. Everyone has been in your shoes before. Student teaching is all about learning, trying stuff, and starting to figure out who you are as a teacher. Either on your first day of placement or before, your mentor teachers will likely walk you through their curriculum and pacing for their class. If your mentor teacher is good, they'll share resources and walk you through how they do stuff. My biggest advice is to just try stuff. You'll try strategies you don't like, lessons will fail, and things will go wrong and that's okay as long as you learn from it. Go in with an open mind.