Final Lab Reflection

When I started out in AEE 412 lab, I was pretty confident in my abilities to teach. I have quite a bit of experience teaching in non-formal settings. In lab I had a large wake up call when it comes to teaching in a formal setting! I learned about making sure it is all planned out and being able to move through the content at a steady pace. Before starting this class, I was highly unorganized, but because of the layout of the lessons, and content of the course I learned quickly that organization is key! I think that lab time was largely beneficial to my education in teaching. There are a lot of things that you don't realize teachers do, and this really opened my eyes to a lot of those things. It was challenging to teach to our peers with lessons designed to high school students. I noticed that some of our lessons were so engaging that the audience didn't matter. It would be really beneficial to have more time in a classroom, but that is what student teaching is for! If there was one thing I would change about AEE 412, is more instruction on the topics. We were always very rushed with learning about a topic and presenting the next day. It made it difficult to plan ahead when we had no idea what the next topic was, especially when it comes to Inquiry and Problem-Based Learning. Overall I really enjoyed lab and thought it was beneficial.