Applied Methods and Management Journal Rodney Flinn Wednesday, March 20, 2013 Self-Management: Adaptability Teachers who

o are adaptable can juggle multiple demands without losing their focus or energy, and are comfortable with the inevitable ambiguities of organizational life. Such teachers can be flexible in adapting to new challenges, nimble in adjusting to change, and limber in their thinking in the face of new data or realities. The first day of my teaching experience I thought I had everything ready and was ready for an easy first day lesson plan. When I arrived at the school the class size had went from the expected 20 students to 40 students. After the initial shock, I took a deep breath and made more copies of the pre-test and adjusted my classroom set-up to accommodate for the larger group. My initial plan was to have the students line up in groups of four, but I changed this format because it would have caused the students to sit longer than needed. The test took longer because of the larger group and it caused me to adjust some of the time allotments of other activities. My lesson plan focused more on safety issues because of the large class size and I had to put the students into a large circle so they would have the appropriate space to perform the activity on the mats. When I finished the lesson plan, which I couldnt finish because of time, I was frustrated at myself for not adapting to the change more efficiently. My supervising teacher and cooperating teacher thought differently. They said that I adapted my lesson plan the best I could and had good class management for such a large group. This is an example of the importance of adaptability, which is needed to be a successful teacher. I made small adjustments, such as, changing the class formations and activity times to cover the key components in my lesson plan. This allowed me to cover the safety issues of the gymnastics

lesson plan, which will allow me to conduct the next class at an efficient pace and cover more material.