“Do you like cake or pie?” Food questions are among the most common I am asked by my 6th grade students during our Thursday, Ask the Expert, warm-up activity. Each week I plunge my hand deep into the bucket of anonymous questions, and somehow I seem to pull out a slip of paper with this type of topic scribbled on it. “Neither,” I share. This, of course, leads to a roar of disappointment and surprise, which undoubtedly transforms into ten-plus follow up questions. While their reactions exemplify the beauty and humor of teaching middle school students, I revel in the spontaneous spark of inquiry dominoing off of one simple answer. My answers lead to their questions, their questions lead to their stories, and ultimately their stories, and mine, lead into a relationship. I use these relationships to thoughtfully create relevant and rigorous learning experiences that engage my students within their curriculum. These three R’s are the foundation upon which I build my own professional development, but they also help me to begin the reinvention of the conventional classroom.
Middle school students are in a constant state of change. Bodies, brains, and buddies--they are all swiftly changing. At times, students come to school full of hugs while other days they are filled with striking fists. The ability to form relationships with these seemingly bipolar beings has never been a more important aspect of education. In my classroom I have implemented a strategy called Capturing Kids’ Hearts. It is a matter of opening each class with a get to know you activity. Whether I am playing the Guess Who Game, reading off their Weekend Updates, or showing them an inspiring video for Inspiration Friday, I am staying transparent and forming relationships ...
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...eks to amplify each of these components. A learning by doing strategy, PBL places the student at the center of the classroom. Collaborative learning and teaching requires a trusting relationship among teacher and student as well as a strong grasp on classroom procedures and teamwork. Some say those who cannot do, teach. By implementing PBL into my daily instruction, I like to think that those who teach, teach others to do.
Consistent reflection is embedded into my practice, and I regularly evaluate the effectiveness of my three components of teaching: relationship, relevance, and rigor. These three R’s are the foundation of my identity as an educator, and they challenge me to elevate my teaching. By engaging in this process, I can keep assessing my professional growth, so I can more effectively impact student achievement as I continue to learn alongside my students.
I can help my teachers be professional learners by using observation and evaluation processes, like those found in Danielson’s model, to promote self-assessment, reflection on practices, and professional conversations with them. The Framework can help me have honest, reflective conversations with the teachers about their instruction and I can use it as a guide to help all involved in professional development decisions. In other words, I can use such teacher evaluation models to promote active engagement and encourage professional growth in all
Warren, Hong, Rubin and Uy (2009) encourage teachers to take a slow approach to engaging with parents/carers and do it in a more authentic way through meaningful conversations. Even a short, five-minute conversation can help “1. Make a personal connection 2. Share your hopes and concerns about the student 3. Leave a lasting impression” (Major, 2008, p. 318). Major (2008) offers another way to engage parents/carers, by holding a ‘gala’ night with awards, food and an exhibition of student work and including other classes or even the whole
The relationships between children and adults in a learning environment, and among the children themselves, are the basis for building a safe, strong and caring community in which everyone is accepted, respected and comfortable. The warmth and support children receive influence the development of greater social competence, fewer behavior problems and enhanced thinking and reasoning skills at school age (Bruce, Cairone & the Devereux Center for Resilient Children, 2012). Supportive interactions occur when teachers listen attentively and displaying unwavering, genuine care and compassion to children. Young children are full of laughter, stories, anecdotes and simple tales of their lives and they love sharing their life experiences with teachers. Teachers should be aware that young children’s voice should be valued and heard. Garvis and Pendergast (2014) suggested that while young children’s voice is being heard and teachers acknowledge their feelings, reciprocal and responsible relationships are more likely to be built. The art of listening is even more important during times when difficulties are present in a child’s life. Strong relationships with young children provide insight so that teachers are able to provide prompt help when children are facing risk factors in
Rogers, C., Lyon, H., & Tausch, R. (2013). On Becoming an Effective Teacher. New York: Rutledge.
Depending on the topic, certain pedagogies fail to facilitate the understanding that is necessary to continue a student’s growth in the subject. Connecting with the students is important, especially with our centennial generation, who need the social connection more than any other. They do not know a world before technology and the connections that it facilitates, the choice to voice opinions and be heard. This follows well with the training that I participated in this summer, Captivating Kids Hearts (CKH). Our school is promoting the activities, allowing us to integrate collaborative codes of conduct and positive affirmations. During our training we spent time learning how to connect with each other on a personal level, emotions were difficult, but what it has given me is the permission to take time to make better connections with my students. What I have found is that class seems to work smoother, and I expect to see other changes as the year
One reason for Reflection being used is to give practitioners the chance to change an aspect within their setting, which they feel can be improved in order to help the development of children within their practice. Reflective practice is about improving practice and coming up with theories to support the improvement (Holmes, 2011, p.7). Reflective practice using critical reflection will allow the practitioners to identify what they do well and what they need to improve on within their Early Years settings. It can also give practitioners the opportunity to develop their professional identity, and work at improving their working environment (Forde et al, 2006, p.65, 66). By allowing practitioners the chance to improve their working environment, it can have a huge influence on the children and their development within the Early Years. For example, a teacher looking back and being reflective over their lesson, will allow them to make amelioration for when they teach that lesson again, thus leading to further learning development of the
Reflection is a key element of the human learning process. It can be used to justify aspects of practice and legitimise the knowledge gained from it, as opposed to traditional forms of learning.
In today’s classroom, the teacher is no longer viewed as the sole custodian of knowledge. The role of a teacher has evolved into being amongst one of the sources of information allowing students to become active learners, whilst developing and widening their skills. Needless to say, learning has no borders – even for the teacher. One of the strongest beliefs which I cling to with regards to teaching is that, teaching never stops and a teacher must always possess the same eagerness as a student. Through several interactions with other teachers, I always strive for new ideas, techniques, teaching styles and strategies that I might add to my pedagogical knowledge. Furthermore, through personal reflection, feedback and evaluation...
The social contexts created within a classroom influence not only academic motivation and achievement, but also the individual development and well-being of students. There are many situations throughout a school day where students must interact with each other, and are shaped by the attitudes and behaviors of others. Research has found that students’ perceptions of positive relationships with their teachers were correlated with their pursuit of pro-social classroom goals such as getting along with others and being socially responsible, and were more strongly linked to student motivation in school (Urdan & Schoenfelder, 2006). Students care about their relationships with their teachers and respond with greater engagement and effort when they believe that their teachers care about them and are supportive. Scaffolding is a great instructional strategy to engage students in the
Professional development is critical to success in a teacher’s career. Teachers need to be opened to continuing their education and consistently reflecting on lessons and interactions with students. At the expert stage of teaching, “the teacher’s practice is characterized by fluency, automaticity, and efficiency” (Garmston,1998). In order to achieve this level of teaching practice, the educator must continue to learn new teaching strategies, understand the curriculum, recognize students and their differences, and conduct self-reflections. A teacher who is dedicated to professional development and wanting to improve their teaching, will make a stronger impact on students. I believe that I am in the Proficient level of performance according to the Framework for Professional Teaching Practices (Danielson, 1996).
The intention of reflective practice is to help the teacher/learning coach evolve and develop the quality of their teaching by the continuation of personal development. Although most teachers have done this for years, reflective modelling or methods have formulized a structure which can be followed and adapted to best suit their methods. It is an ongoing process which takes feelings and emotions into consideration and so it will not always have a definitive answer/ending. Since most models of reflection require subjective and objective thinking then there is a willingness to be honest to engage constant self appraisal. It asks that the teacher become flexible analytical and socially aware when addressing their chosen model of reflection.
Building upon the learning climate within the classroom, it is vital for teachers to take the time to build relationships with their students, to develop a rappel and level of respect whilst getting to know students strengths and weaknesses as well as their interests. By taking the time to get to know students, teachers are able to cater to students likes and dislikes and levels of abilities through adaption of classroom materials and procedures (Campbell, Gilmore & Cuskelly, 2003) thus creating a more enjoyable and successful learning outcome.
Through the certification process, candidates must compile a portfolio with various pieces of evidence related to general teaching practices and their specific content area. There are videos of whole group and small group lessons, analysis of student work samples and inclusion of artifacts of leadership, professional learning, community involvement and communication that must demonstrate consistent and continuous growth. Throughout the process, you are required to think about what you teach, how you teach and why you teach it a certain way. This constant reflection was revolutionary in my teaching methodology. I knew what metacognition meant but the act of writing it out and defending my thought processes clarified my reasoning and helped me to see patterns that needed to change. As teachers, we constantly reflect on our teaching but until it is articulated, those ideas tend to be nebulous and easily dissolve in the daily duties of our regular lives. I never would have realized the power that the word “because” has until it links a lesson to a child, standard, or
This week had the biggest impact on my professional growth. During this week, I learned that meaningful reflection is " the practice or act of analyzing our actions, decisions, or products by focusing on our process of achieving them (York-Barr, Sommers, Ghere & Montie, 2006). There are many benefits of reflecting in the field of education. The most influential is the effect that reflection has on the learning that your students gain. If a teacher meaningfully reflects on their practices they will create lessons to better impact students. According to Carol Ann Tomlinson (2003), “Teacher reflection inevitably attends directly to students ' need for affirmation, contribution, power, purpose, and challenge.” Each time a teacher reflects on their work, they empower their students to learn more. Students recognize their teacher’s reflection and mimic their behavior. I feel like learning about reflection impacted me most because it showed me that I should reflect on the good and the bad. Everything that I teach should be reflected on. The more that I reflect on my work, I will be closer to becoming an expert teacher. Reflection has the biggest impact on professionalism as a teacher. If I am willing to learn from my strengths and mistakes I will impact my students to strive to the best they