Content:
- Student Teaching Reflection
- Response to Intervention
- New Teacher Goals
- Career Plans
Student Teaching Reflection -
Clinical and Student Teaching Self-Evaluation
Over the last few years, as I observed and assisted within a variety of different schools and completed my student teaching experience, my views on teaching have changed significantly. I have strengthened my teaching skills and also developed a greater understanding of my many responsibilities as an educator. While I believe I have been quite successful throughout my teaching experiences, I also faced challenges, which proved to be valuable learning experiences. Overall, my student teaching experience has really made clear to me that a career as a social studies educator is truly my calling in life.
Going into my clinical experiences, I did have some experience teaching English as a second language abroad in Thailand. I really enjoyed working with students during this experience and this really encouraged me to become a teacher. Because of my interest in other cultures and history I decided to pursue a career as a social studies educator. Not only do I have the privileged of doing something fulfilling that I truly enjoy but I also continue to learn everyday about how to more effectively teach my students.
When I first decided to go into teaching, I imagined I would be a very different kind of teacher than I have become. All of the history teachers that really inspired me throughout my life did so because of their profound content knowledge and expert lecturing skills. Going into teaching I was somewhat overwhelmed because I planned on memorizing as much detailed and specific historical information as I could. My greatest goal was to become an expert lecturer like the teachers I so enjoyed in both high school and college.
After completing my clinical observations and student teaching, my perspectives have changed considerably. I still believe content information is of the utmost importance but I now understand exceptional teachers have many other characteristics as well. I acknowledge the fact that lectures are an efficient way to communicate information, but I also have come to understand that a majority of students do not have the attention spans needed to sit through a full class period of lecture. Strong content knowledge is only one important part of being a successful social studies teacher. Dedication, creativity, relating to students, and developing classroom management skills are all very important as well.
Throughout my clinical and my student teaching experience in particular, I have demonstrated my dedication to teaching and becoming the best educator I can be. I continue to strengthen my content knowledge by reading scholarly journals and books, but I also strive to put in the extra effort to help students who are struggling. I developed adaptations for my co-taught sections during student teaching that allowed all students achieve to their potential. I also met with English language learners during my planning period, and their resource period to help them with papers and projects. I made sure I was available to students before and after school and even over spring vacation through email. I truly believe this dedication encouraged students to make their best effort because they realized I had high expectations of them and would always put in extra effort to help them succeed.
My observations and student teaching experience really helped me to develop a more creative approach to teaching. I observed many diverse classrooms and collaborated with teachers who taught with a variety of teaching methods. I was always sure to take note of activities and projects that allowed students to demonstrate their learning in creative and interactive ways. I continue to use creative instruction methods and vary class activities to captivate student interest. During each lesson, I try to allow for both collaborative activities as well as class discussion of content. I always reflect on my successes and challenges to try to refine my content delivery skills.
I understand that one of the most important aspects of teaching is simply relating to students. While I try to keep my classes focused on scheduled activities, I also try to make course material relevant to students so all students can make connections between historical content and their own lives. I have students write reflection journals, which demonstrates to them the fact that their opinion and thoughts are important. I also go out of my way to take an interest in their lives and the activities they are involved in. Establishing a positive rapport with all students encourages them to apply themselves in class. This is one area I feel I succeeded at during my student teaching experience. I will continue to develop positive relationships with all of my students in the future.
I have learned that classroom management is also an essential aspect of productive teaching. I have developed skills to encourage positive productive classroom behavior. Above all, I now realize the importance of being clear about classroom expectations. Being consistent about discipline is also absolutely essential to gain the respect of students and maintain order in the classroom. I encountered some discipline challenges during student teaching but I was prepared to deal with these issues because I had already outlined clear consequences for behavior problems.
My clinical and student teaching experience has also helped me strengthen my teaching skills. When planning lessons, I relentlessly think about ways I can make them more engaging and relevant. Not only do I think about conveying information, but I also try to come up with creative and interactive ways I can make content memorable to students. I also constantly reflect on my instructional decisions. Throughout the day, I make adjustments to my lessons. I believe I have successfully planned and delivered effective lessons that incorporate a variety of different teaching methods that lend themselves to the content I am teaching. In addition to conveying content, I try to make lessons fun and engaging. I often encourage students to reflect on what they would do when faced with a variety of historical challenges.
Prior to my clinical and student teaching experiences, I did not fully comprehend just how many responsibilities teachers have. I understood the importance of taking time to plan and assess students, but the amount of time it took to grade assignments was quite shocking. Staying in contact with parents, student counselors, case managers, as well as contributing to PLCs and completing administrative duties was originally overwhelming. Throughout my student teaching experience I developed organizational systems to help me become a more efficient teacher. I believe student teaching has taught me to manage my valuable time quite well.
Each day of my student teaching experiences taught me something new about students, myself, and my role as an educator. While I faced many challenges, the rewards always outweighed them. Overall I believe I had a very successful student teaching experience. I look forward to continuing to learn and put forth my best effort teaching my student throughout my future career.
RtI Reflection -
Prior to viewing the California Department of Education video outlining what RtI is, I was only familiar with the theoretical aspects of RtI and had little understanding of how RtI is implemented. While, I understood the focus of RtI is to match instruction to individual student needs, the video really elucidated how this is done in a school. The video also stressed the important role of assessment when implement RtI. RtI requires teachers to work collaboratively with parents and examine data in an attempt to identify what instruction is most effective for any given student.
When designing an effective instructional program, RtI aims at making sure students receive appropriate resources based on their need. The school-wide tiered approach includes core instruction aimed at most students, supplemental instruction to smaller groups of students with similar needs, and finally, intensive instruction to individual student who either greatly exceed or do not meet expectations.
To implement and evaluate the effectiveness of RtI frequent assessment is essential. Three types of assessment were discussed in the Intro to RtI video. First of all, screening must take place. Screening seeks to identify both school-wide problems as well as individual students who may require intervention or additional assessment to help identify their needs. Screening is done beginning in early grades in both reading and math. Screening helps identify which students are not having their needs met by the core curriculum. I thought the timed examples of screening shown in the video may be problematic however because timing assessment makes students rush and can increase student error.
Diagnostic assessment, which aims at identifying why students are not benefiting from instruction is the next assessment step to RtI. Finally, frequent and ongoing formative assessment, which takes place in the classroom, allows for progress monitoring of students. Clearly, collecting assessment data is an integral part of implementing RtI programs.
Finally, data much be used to make good instructional decisions. Overall, RtI seems related to the instructional process, which illustrates how assessment of outcomes, planning, and instruction guide one another. I believe RtI seems to provide a systematic way to reach the common goal of all teachers. That is to benefit and enhance the learning experience of each individual student based on their unique needs. My only concern is that much of the discussion of RtI focuses on the elementary schools. I am interested in seeing how RtI is implemented at the secondary level.
New Teacher Goals -
Goals for Teaching
During my first year teaching, I have many goals for teaching and professional development as an educator. I plan on developing positive relationships, maintaining a classroom environment that maximizes student learning, continuing to improve my lesson planning, delivery, and assessment of student learning. I will also continue to improve my content area knowledge, get involved within my school and community, and continue to reflect on ways I can improve my effectiveness as a teacher.
It is very important for me to develop positive relationships with students, parents, and colleagues. It is my goal to create an open forum for students’ diverse perspectives. I will develop a positive rapport with students by discussing in their interests and perspectives. I will also plan a variety of different interactive and cooperative activities. Students will have the opportunity to develop positive relationships with their peers. I will also develop positive relationships with student by being available to them both before and after school.
I will also develop relationships with parents by introducing myself and the course(s) I teach to them at open house, keeping them informed of student successes and struggles, and discussing student progress at parent-teacher conferences. I will also provide parents the ability to monitor their own student progress by keeping grades updated online and posting homework assignments online as well. I will develop professional collaborative relationships with colleagues as well. I plan on participating in professional learning communities to develop curriculum ideas and learn from the experiences of other teachers. I also look forward to an educational and supportive experience being mentored as a new teacher.
To reach my second goal of maintaining a positive classroom environment I plan on making students aware of my high expectations for their behavior and their academic performance beginning on the very first day of class. I will do this by providing a syllabus for the courses I teach and discussing classroom regulations and routines. Routines, such as requiring students to write reflection journals will also provide structure and encourage students to be comfortable expressing their opinion and participating and class discussion. I will also use organizational systems to encourage student success. I plan on having an absence folder for students to obtain the work from days they missed class.
During my first year of teaching I also plan on continuing to develop my repertoire of teaching methods. I will read educational literature so I can continue to construct creative ideas for delivery of instruction. In addition, I look forward to collaborating with other teachers to develop ideas for instruction as well. I am also dedicated to strengthening my content knowledge by basing lessons on scholarly materials. I plan on designing lessons that are both content focused and skill focused, while making an effort to make content material relevant to students by encouraging reflection on both historical topics and current events. I plan on keeping student engaged and reinforcing learning by planning a variety of activities each class period. I also plan on constructing formal assessments that are valid and reliably gauge whether student have met learning objectives. In addition to formal tests I will be sure to also design performance assessments that allow students to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.
Lastly, I also look forward to taking advantage of professional development opportunities offered within my school and also taking a leadership role within the school by assisting with extra-curricular activities. I am particularly interested in working with government and internationally oriented activities such as class councils or Model UN. I am also interested in familiarizing myself with the community I will be teaching in, by visiting the local historical society and using community resources when developing my lesson plans. Throughout my first year or teaching, and beyond, I will also continue to reflect on ways I can improve my teaching skills to meet my students’ needs and help them reach their potential.
Career Plans -
Throughout my career as an educator, my professional goals include educating my students to the best of my ability while continuing my own education as well. I intend to earn my master’s degree in history or secondary education instruction to better prepare myself for this task. With every lesson I plan, I learn something new myself. I believe strong content and pedagogical knowledge are essential to teaching most effectively. It is my goal to continue perfecting lessons I have planned to make content relevant to the lives of students.
I plan to also continue familiarizing myself with new instructional technologies as they develop. At the moment, I am very interested in learning new ways to incorporate the use of Smartboards in the classroom. I look forward to developing positive relationships with students inside and outside the classroom by not only creating a safe an inclusive classroom environment but also by leading extracurricular activities.
I also intend to set an example for student, who I will encourage to become engaged and active citizens within this community. I plan on doing this by seeking out volunteer opportunities within the community I teach in. I also wish to collaborate with other educators to better understand the needs of students with special needs and to get new lesson ideas and perspectives on the most effective ways to teach students.
