Comparing My Mentor

Although both of my mentors have been excellent teachers, their classrooms have had very different room set-ups. Both mentor teachers have exhibited highly effective classroom management skills, even though they have both used different methods to accomplish this task. I have only been with my current mentor for one week, versus the eight weeks I spent with my first mentor, but I have already observed similarities and differences in the two mentors’ teaching styles.
The classroom where I completed my first student teaching experience was set up with rows of desks facing the front board. In each row, two student desks were touching. Having all desks forward-facing is the best arrangement for teacher-centered, direct instruction, and the two student desks together worked well for two students working as partners. However, when cooperative groups of more than two were formed, desks and/or chairs had to be rearranged to …show more content…
Both classrooms have a smart board and projector that make utilizing technology in the classroom convenient. Unfortunately, the classroom computers did not work well in my first mentor’s classroom, and her students did not have the luxury of iPads or Chromebooks as my current students do. However, both teachers used the resources available to them in very effective ways. I know that even very young students are motivated by technology based learning and plan to include this in my own daily instruction whenever possible. My first mentor teacher uses a textbook for basic instruction, but includes a variety of other resources in each lesson. My current mentor is required to use all of the instruction in the text lessons, which leaves little time to incorporate much from other resources. I hope to find a way to use children’s literature and other sources, in addition to the text, for the lessons in my second student teaching experience and in my own