Tips for Mentoring a Student Teacher - Observing Your Student Teacher



Did you like part 5 of this series about planning?  If you missed it, you can click on the picture above to see all the posts in this series!

Today, I'm going to share some tips with you about observing your student teacher.  Keep reading to see what I have to say!


Once your student teacher starts planning lessons, he/she will start teaching those lessons. If your student teacher is going to improve, you need to observe their teaching.

It is very easy to get sucked into feeling like he/she isn't doing it right because it is different than how you would teach the lesson.  Try to let it go! I know that is easier said than done, but it will make the placement easier.

Let your student teacher make mistakes. He/she will learn more from making mistakes than if you jump in to correct the lessons immediately. Make notes of the mistakes or when you would do something differently, but try to bite your tongue. It is important for the students to see the student teacher as a teacher. This won't happen if you constantly jump in.

When observing your student teacher, you should also make sure you make note of things that he/she does well. Don't always make it about things to work on. Think about writing report card comments. You don't always tell the parents about negatives. So you shouldn't always tell your student teacher about negatives.

Next time I will give you some tips on how to give feedback based on your observations.

To go along with these blog posts, I have created a guide. This guide will be for sale in my TpT store. It is currently $4.50 in my store! If you purchase it now, you will be able to get all the updates for free just by downloading it again when I add tips to it. The graphic below shows you part of the printables you will get in addition to the pages of tips that are summarized here.



You might be wondering why you should purchase it since I'll be listing the tips for free here. Well, in addition to keeping all the tips together in a uniform guide, I will be creating printables that you can use with your own student teacher. You won't be able to get those here on my blog.

Remember, the price will go up in 2 weeks when I post the next tip here on my blog!

Here's a guide for you so you can see when to expect the tips.




What other tips about observing your student teacher do you have?


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