This semester, my Professional Development class served as a valuable learning experience for my future career as an educator. One of the valuable lessons came from the Jensen textbook that we read. In Jensen’s Teaching with the Brain in Mind, it informs us of the seven critical factors involved in the learning process. These seven critical factors are focus, repetition, quantity input, coherence, timing, error correction, and emotional states. Learning about these critical factors influenced the way that I worked with my tutee this semester. It allowed me to make connections on how the learning process works. I was also able to construct better ways for him to process information based on both mine and his experience with these seven critical …show more content…
I believe that the most valuable lesson learned for me through my experience was that it is completely different when you have to come into school having the mindset of an educator rather than just a student; meaning that there is much more to focus on as a future educator rather than just being a student. For instance, as a student, you typically go in there and worry about just learning the lesson and completing the assignments for your own benefit. With the mindset of an educator, there are far more things going on in your head besides the lesson of the day. For example, you have to constantly wonder whether students are able to understand the lesson and whether your methods of teaching are effective. You also wonder how your class learns best since not all students learn the same. So, you have to have a variety in your teaching so that each student is able to feel comfortable at certain points of your assignments and teaching skills. One of the least valuable things I learned from my field experience was traditional note taking and lectures. I say this because it is something that I grew up knowing in my classrooms when I was a students. I believe that learning new ways to teach is extremely beneficial and I enjoy seeing more and more teachers incorporating this into their lesson
When I use to go into classrooms I was more of an observer and just blended in, but now I am starting to see myself with authority in the classroom. This experience also teaches me about the major difference that just a single grade can make. While working in the kindergarten classroom we are focusing on learning the alphabet, but in the first grade classroom we are reading books that have multiple sentences on a page. Therefore, as I continue on in this program I will understand how to best use what I am being taught to help those that I am teaching. As for my personal teaching philosophies I am learning how I want to make sure I get across to all of my students. In my elementary school, students who were struggling, including myself, were pulled out of the classroom to receive the help they need, but now I see how the idea of an inclusive classroom can be so much more beneficial. Keeping all of the students in one classroom and fitting the lesson plans to fit them all will allow the students to flourish with all different types of learners. In conclusion, I feel that this experience is better preparing me to become a teacher because it is exposing me to an actual classroom instead of just reading about
As the time approached, my attitude toward student-teaching was one of confidence and in some ways overconfidence. I believed that I was equipped with all of the tools necessary to be a superior teacher. Little did I know what truly goes on behind the scenes of a teacher. Between grading papers, attending meetings, and preparing lessons, I would often feel overwhelmed. Still, student teaching would prove to be much more valuable than I anticipated. It would teach me to appreciate the wisdom of mentors and experienced teachers, value or being organized and prepared, and lastly the resilience of students.
I will explain the psychology of learning and the theories I use in my practice. Analysing these theories and teaching methods will give rise, to investigating how these will help in teaching and learning ‘In a nutshell, a principle is a value, belief or ethic relating to something you do and the theory is that which explains why it works’.(Wilson 2009:350) In delivering of a lessons, educator must keep in mind SMARTER objectives.
LeFrancois, G. R. (1999) Psychology for Teaching. (10th ed.) University of Alberta Wadsworth: Thomson Learning.
Snowman, J, McGowan, R, & Biehler, R. (2009). Psychology applied to teaching. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
I know that as I grow and learn as a teacher my theory on education will change and grow with me. I know that the best thing that I can bring to the table when it comes to being a teacher is the willingness to learn along with my students on what works best for us in our classroom, what is important to us when it comes to learning, and to change what needs to be change in order to have a positive learning environment for my student. The most important thing as a teacher I will bring with me into my classroom is the unwavering desire to help to guide, shape, and above all foster a love of learning in my
Krause, K, Bochner, S, Duchesne, S & McNaugh, A 2010, Educational Psychology: for learning & teaching, 3rd edn, Cengage Learning Australia, Victoria
Novin, A., Arjomand, L. and Jourdan, L. Teaching & Learning, Fall 2003, Volume 18, Number 1, pp. 24-31. Available from : http://www.und.nodak.edu/dept/ehd/journal/Fall2003/novin.pdf [ Accessed 2nd December
Ormrod, J. E. (2012). Essentials of educational psychology: Big ideas to guide effective teaching, 3rd, ed. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Throughout this two year experience, the quality that I feel tested more than others, was the quality of patience. Often times before I held this position, I found myself becoming extremely impatient with individuals and situations when they would not go the way as planned or as smoothly as I had planned for them to go. This position taught me that not all situations are going to run smoothly and that we need to make the best of what we are presented with. It also taught me that not all individuals learn at the same pace, the same way, and at times do not handle individuals close to their own age giving instructions on how to complete a task. With this realization, I found myself trying to find methods of teaching that appealed to all individuals, as well as finding ways of not coming off as trying to force individuals to complete the tasks the way that I see fit.
Over the course of observations, I learned that there is no one way to do anything in teaching. After a few weeks of observing, I was relieved because I thought that I could stop worrying so much about doing the “right” thing with the students. I saw a successful teacher doing, or neglecting to do things that went against what I had been taught. I incorrectly assumed that the choices the teacher made about how to organize the day, approach a lesson, or manage the classroom were mostly a matter of personal preference and that several approaches would produce equally desirable results.
Education is an ever-changing part of society. A classroom teacher is faced with new challenges and obstacles that have never been dealt with before. Students come to the classroom with different life stories. Every student has strengths and weaknesses that surface in the classroom environment. Teachers must understand and focus on utilizing each student's strengths and work to improve weaknesses. Students learn in a variety of ways. The classroom must be a safe zone that appreciates student's viewpoints and allows room for mistakes. When topics in the classroom are related to "real-life" experiences, the information is more likely to be retained. Students learn from one another. The ideas and perspectives that each student brings to the classroom can bring insight into what is being learned. Students have to be allowed to explore new ideas, try them to see if they work, and sometimes fail. When students are encouraged to explore, they begin the process of becoming lifelong learners.
...uable life lessons as well as traditional ones. They should know basic facts and be able to apply them. Teaching is all about getting your students to become better students when they leave the classroom.
First, I realized that, teachers carry a lot of weight on their shoulders and have great responsibilities. They have to balance the curriculum, students, parents, lesson plans, common core, and upper management and still maintain a professional demeanor. Second, educators must follow a strong code of ethics. They must be professional at all times with students and colleagues, keep confidentiality, not have or show any prejudice or bias, maintain safe and positive learning environments, help students with problems, and hand out disciplines accordingly. Lastly, I found that when you’re a teacher, your education never stops. Teachers are always trying to improve their own education and professional growth, both for the benefit of their students and for the benefit of themselves.
In this course I experienced an important change in my beliefs about teaching; I came to understand that there are many different theories and methods that can be tailored to suit the teacher and the needs of the student. The readings, especially those from Lyons, G., Ford, M., & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2011), Groundwater-Smith, S., Ewing, R., & Le Cornu, R. (2007), and Whitton, D., Barker, K., Nosworthy, M., Sinclair, C., Nanlohy, P. (2010), have helped me to understand this in particular. In composing my essay about teaching methods and other themes, my learning was solidified, my knowledge deepened by my research and my writing skills honed.