Student teacher learns the ropes of an East marketing class both in-person and online

Carefully eyeing the work of marketing teacher Mercedes Rasmussen, student teacher Joe Blake works on pulling together a lesson plan for the class as he learns the ropes of SME teaching.

After being influenced by his parents, Blake decided to become a teacher in January of 2019, began student teaching for the fall 2020 semester and has since completed graduate school. He started working at East in late August, and will start his new teaching job at Olathe Northwest on Jan. 4, teaching Computer Applications and Financial Literacy.

According to Blake, the interactions and connections teaching brings, from both the students and other teachers, has taught him a lot about working in a school. 

“I learned to always remain flexible, always work hard and be prepared, and to always keep the focus on the students,” Blake said.

In addition to the standard challenge of teaching high school students, Blake was faced with trying to gain teaching skills online through Webex for the first quarter. Being a virtual teacher isn’t an ideal task for any East teacher, and Blake felt even more pressure since he was new.

Aside from teaching virtually, Blake’s biggest challenge was lesson planning for each class — due to his lack of experience.  According to Blake, planning is an important and crucial part of teaching.

“Teaching virtually is not my favorite,” Blake said, “It is definitely a skill that today’s teachers should have. It’s important to remain flexible and adaptive to the changing situations around us.”

To prepare for class, Blake would plan out everything Mercedes’ and Doane’s students would do during class, whether it be videos, worksheets, notes, projects.

“Every class had an overall goal or information to teach to the students,” Blake said, “I spent most of my time figuring out how to teach that info. Is the best way through notes? Videos? Projects? Figuring out what to do differently was also part of it.”

Along with his student teaching, Blake has continued to attend teaching courses at Avila University in Kansas City, Missouri to make sure if prepared to his maximum extent for when it comes time to teach in person.

In his course he is being evaluated by his Avila instructor along with teachers he’s worked with such as Mercedes Rasmussen and Amanda Doane.

“[Mercedes and Doane] are amazing at teaching the students but also being great mentors for me,” Blake said, “They are insightful, caring and always do what is necessary to support those around them. I’d be very lucky to work with teachers in the future that are half of what they are.”

Something that helped Blake remain flexible — especially with changes throughout the course of the fall — was his mindset. He encouraged himself to go with everything and keep in mind that this is a unique time and opportunity to teach and that he’s always learning from every experience.

“I feel as if I am as prepared as a new teacher can be in 2020,” Blake said, “I know that I have a long way to go in terms of becoming the best teacher I can be, but understand that I possess the necessary tools to become a successful teacher”.