Teaching is important to me because you are shaping student’s minds and watching them grow as learners. When I was smaller, I used to play school with all my stuffed animals, and I would mimic the teaching styles of my teachers. I knew I wanted to become a teacher when I was 8 years old. As I continued my academic journey my love of learning increased exponentially. Every teacher I had has pushed me far beyond what I thought I was capable of. My goal is the become that teacher for my students. I want my students to feel that they can come to me to support them in their academic endeavors. I know that with lessons I deliver, my students will be learning the necessary skills they need to succeed and I find efficient ways to improve my teaching. After all, the jobs of teachers are to shape the minds of future generations and with the techniques I have acquired I plan to do so thoroughly.
For my students to be successful out in the real world, they must first be successful in the classroom. Here are some of the practices and behaviors I have observed while being in the classroom that I will implement with my students to ensure they are reaching their full potential.
Watching my students be excited about learning would motivate me to be the best for them. From reading fun picture books to them to connecting fun activities, my students will be motivated to want to do the work because they aren’t reading out of a textbook and answer questions. Instead they are participating in process-based art creations that are relevant to the lesson. Through these lessons I am reaching my kinesthetic, auditory, and visual learners. Through the activities I will see how well the students respond to the lesson and work on improving my instruction by giving clearer expectations, modeling what is expected, and even provided a more socially inviting classroom.
I will know I taught effectively when all my students are able to make meaningful connections to the lessons and be able to tell me what their biggest takeaway from the lesson was. The students will complete an exit ticket that will have questions like “What did we learn about today? What was the most interesting thing about today’s lesson? What was the least interesting thing about today’s lesson?”
I would use technology to enhance my lessons by allowing my students to access resources like read alouds for certain books, worksites for my students to complete assignments or even just use the projector to display modeled assignments. With this the students are being introduced to many technological outlets with guided assistance. The use of technology will forever stay with us and if we embrace it our students will be able to achieve far more goals than without it.
For my students to be successful out in the real world, they must first be successful in the classroom. Here are some of the practices and behaviors I have observed while being in the classroom that I will implement with my students to ensure they are reaching their full potential.
- Differentiation: Making lessons plans is a heavy task for any teacher. However the process of constructing a lesson plan stems from the learning styles and needs of the students. No two students learn the same way and it is the teachers’ job to build a relationship with their students and find the best way to reach their students in a meaningful way. For example this can be seen with a lesson on The Three Little Pigs. Students can be given the same assignment to work on their comprehension skills however students that the teacher feels can benefit from a challenge can be asked “Instead of the author using the phrase ‘the wolf huffed, and he puffed’, what other words could the author have used?”. By providing my students with questions that allow for critical thinking I am giving my students an opportunity to expand their knowledge beyond the classroom. Differentiation does not necessarily mean adding more work to the workload the students are currently completing. Differentiation means tailoring the lessons to all students' individual learning styles that will allow the students to reach their full academic potential.
- Student Centered Learning: With student centered learning the students are directly in charge of their own learning and the teacher strays away from traditional lecturing. Teachers in this case are facilitators for learning and walk around to assist students in whatever they need. For example, the students could participate in a role play scenario of The Three Little Pigs. In their groups the students will work together to create a script that replicate events that took place in the story as well as carrying out the roles of their characters. Student centered learning is also another opportunity to use higher order thinking because the students can bounce ideas off each other to come up with the best answer to the question. An example of a question can be, "How could you rewrite the story from the Big Bad Wolf's point of view?" A student centered classroom gives the students a chance to work on their collaboration skills and gives the students' a more effective way of expressing themselves through their work.
- Cooperative Learning: Cooperative learning gives the students a chance to work together, heterogeneously, or homogeneously, on an activity. The grouping styles can vary greatly on the activity. For example you can group students that have the same academic ability to have one on one time with the teacher or you can group the students heterogeneously so there is a high student to be the mini-teacher for that group. For example this can be seen in a “Who did it?” inference activity. The students will each read clues as to who the suspect was and together the team will make inferences to figure out who the suspect was.
Watching my students be excited about learning would motivate me to be the best for them. From reading fun picture books to them to connecting fun activities, my students will be motivated to want to do the work because they aren’t reading out of a textbook and answer questions. Instead they are participating in process-based art creations that are relevant to the lesson. Through these lessons I am reaching my kinesthetic, auditory, and visual learners. Through the activities I will see how well the students respond to the lesson and work on improving my instruction by giving clearer expectations, modeling what is expected, and even provided a more socially inviting classroom.
I will know I taught effectively when all my students are able to make meaningful connections to the lessons and be able to tell me what their biggest takeaway from the lesson was. The students will complete an exit ticket that will have questions like “What did we learn about today? What was the most interesting thing about today’s lesson? What was the least interesting thing about today’s lesson?”
I would use technology to enhance my lessons by allowing my students to access resources like read alouds for certain books, worksites for my students to complete assignments or even just use the projector to display modeled assignments. With this the students are being introduced to many technological outlets with guided assistance. The use of technology will forever stay with us and if we embrace it our students will be able to achieve far more goals than without it.