James and Kristin Whitt’s Corner

Praxis III

I just thought I’d share a little exciting news about my career.  Every beginning teacher now has to go through Praxis III their first year teaching.  Last year I didn’t do it because I wasn’t a classroom teacher.  So this year I had to do it since you only have your first two years to get it finished (without a lot of extra hassle).  What is it?  Well, it consists of meeting throughout the year with a mentor teacher (mine was awesome!!) and having a state assessor come in and assess everything single tiny detail about how you teach and handle a classroom full of kids … all in about three hours.  My Praxis III was on March 1 and my assessor watched me teach a math lesson about probability and we had a pre and post interview for me to explain why I taught what I did and how I did it.  I was very stressed in the weeks leading up to it because I have a very very very very very challenging class full of talkers, but when it came cruch time and the assessor was there everthing went pretty much perfectly.  I finally got my results back this past Monday and I passed!!!!!  That means that when I have to renew my license this June, I can get my five year and I’ll be good for five more years.