1. Take as many opportunities as you can! It's so important to go to early morning and evening rehearsals, band competitions, and performances. It gives you a huge opportunity to get to know students outside of the normal school day and see what other commitments you may have as a band director.
2. Practice your secondary instruments. When I began student teaching, I found that my brass chops were significantly worse than any of my other instruments. To help with this, I utilized my observation time by playing different instruments in the band in order to build my own playing skills, but also make that connection within the different sections of the band. I also tried to play with students as much as I could in lessons. Students completely understand that you are learning, just as they are! Play with them and learn from them.
3. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. As a student, now is your chance to try new rehearsal techniques, different classroom management tricks, varying warm-up procedures, etc. Things will go differently than you planned, but that is perfectly okay! Roll with it and be confident. Through this process you learn what works for you and for students and what might not work as well.
4. Create a "toolbox" for yourself. Once you find a lesson plan you like, a game students enjoy, a management strategy you like, or a document you found useful you should save it in a Google Drive. There may be a time in the future where you need some new ideas and you can reference your "toolbox" with tried and true items you and your band may find success with.
5. Ask questions all the time! Anytime you have a question or are uncertain about something, you should ask. I found myself asking questions ranging from alternate fingerings on instruments to registering for festivals to utilizing standards based grading in a program. You might be surprised when your CT has to look it up themselves. We are all learning so there are absolutely no bad questions.
6. Take care of yourself. Student teaching is a really busy semester and you can only be successful each day if you are keeping your needs met. Make sure you eat, drink, and sleep (early bed times are "A okay").
7. Be organized. During this semester, you are still a student. You will mostly likely have a seminar to attend, assignments to complete, an assessment to gain your licensure, all on top of writing lesson plans and teaching. You must create a timeline for yourself so you can accomplish all of your tasks on time. Keep a planner or calendar somewhere you can easily access it. Make it a daily routine to work on an assignment or lesson plan at a specific time so you don't get behind.
8. Make a draft of your resume and cover letter before student teaching. You may find yourself applying for jobs during your student teaching semester, and it can be really stressful to be working on a resume and cover letter on top of all of your every day tasks and assignments. If you create a draft before teaching, you can have your CT's, supervisors, and school administrators look over them before you begin applying.
9. Take criticism as an opportunity to grow, not a personal attack. This is the semester to learn more about yourself and your teaching style. Your CT or supervisor will critique you, but it is all to help you. I take things very personally, and it wore me down and made me feel like a bad educator. As soon as I started thinking of criticism as growth, I felt better and more confident with my teaching.
10. Have fun!!! Student teaching is one of the first opportunities we have to teach students (what we went to school for in the first place :) ). The kids are so excited to have a passionate teacher in front of them and will have a blast with you. You will change students' lives for the better through this profession. Enjoy every single moment.
By Devan Cummings
a.k.a Student Teacher Extraordinaire
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