Chemistry Teacher Interview Question:

Tell me what is your greatest weakness that is really a weakness, and not a secret strength?

Submitted by: Muhammad

I have a lot of ideas for activities and I am not always a linear thinker. When I was student teaching, I expected my students to be able to move with me through lesson plans that often incorporated too many untried technologies and jumped around from one task to another. (like the time students' videotaped an assignment and then we couldn't upload and share them on EDMODO). To address this weakness, I started creating lists of my ideas and bringing them to our lesson planning team or my cooperating teacher where I would sort them and relate each one to a learning standard. This helped me prioritize and choose an anchoring activity or lab around which I was able to plan bursts of direct instruction followed by practice and formative assessment. My students noticed the change and the dynamics of the classroom moved from chaos to more orderly intentional activity. Substitute teaching has really helped me continue to strengthen my lesson organization. By teaching block lesson plans created by seasoned teachers I have been able to keep students engaged and learning in high priority activities tied to learning targets.
Submitted by: Muhammad