1. Children and adolescents are COMPLEX! It is very easy to see the surface level things in a child or adolescent but we have no clue what is going below the surface. Knowing that we need to take into account how understanding we are when acknowledging their behavior.
2. Adolescents specifically act different when they are around different people. They act different around their parents, their friends, their teachers etc. This is something that we know but what it important is to know that it is due to their cognitive development, they aren’t just being ‘fake’ like common misconceptions.
3. Piaget stating that children learn the best by actively exploring and adjusting to the world. As a science teacher I am big on active learning as I feel as though it activates the brain greatly.
4. Piaget’s theory has stages, which are as follows: – Sensorimotor: Ages 0-2, children do not have object permanence or the ability to form mental representations. – Preoperational: Ages 2-7, children think mainly in symbols and intuition and they perceive and believe objects are alive. – Concrete operational: Ages 7-11, children begin to be able to think logically. This is done for thinking about real events, numbers and master conversation. – Formal Operational: Ages 11 through adulthood, children are able to develop a system to test a hypothesis about cause and effect.
5. The zone of proximal development was developed by Lev Vygotsky’s theory about development as well as learning. The ZPD is the space that is located between what a learner can do independently and what a learner can do with guidance from an adult or peers that are capable.
6. How a teacher can create their lessons to be developmentally fit for their students. Through breaking down my CT’s lesson plans I was able to see how she made sure that students that were at all developmental levels could be included, which is why she focused so heavily on active learning and hands on learning. By making sure that all students developmentally were included all students were able to get their best out of their learning.
7. Check when your research articles were written. You may think you did, but make sure you check again and that it is relevant.
8. For the redo of my research I am focusing on mental health in athletes and I have already learned so much and is something that could relate to development. We tend to see many mental health cases in athletes to be much older athletes/athletes that are at the collegiate level. Although I haven’t finished my research yet I am hoping to find out at what point is there a change that mental health becomes an issue in athletes.
9. You are one of your students biggest advocates! Make sure you know that going into your classroom everyday as you could change a students life.
10. Reflection is the most important part of your teaching practice. If you are not able to reflect upon yourself, it will not only impact your teaching but your students as well. By reflecting we are able to continuously improve upon what we are doing in our classroom.
This week was my last week in the field, both a celebration but a sad moment as well. This has been an absolutely amazing experience. The experience this week that stood out to me the most was on my last day. My cooperating teacher asked my students to write me advice and words of encouragement. What blew me out of the water is what these kids wrote. Although their actions sometimes show a lack of maturity, in reality what the wrote was extremely mature. My students wrote about how previous interactions with teachers changed them in both positive and negative ways. Most students reflected on previous experiences on a very deep level. The shared advice on what we can do as teachers to help them succeed as students in our classroom. It was so inspiring to hear their advice as it is so important to know what your students need.
This week has been a really good week! As I come to a close on my third week I take the time to reflect of big developmental ideas that I have learned. I think the biggest developmental idea that I have learned in the last three weeks is what a rollercoaster the kids ride. Everyday they are faced with so many challenges that we don’t see and as teachers it is so important that we keep that in mind as we enter our classroom everyday. We ofter just think about what we see, for instance a student that isn’t completing their work in class. Yes it could be that they don’t want to do it, but it also could be that they have something going on outside of the classroom that they are struggling with. As the teacher it helps to know that can be a factor in your classroom that you have no control over but it’s important that we acknowledge that as it impacts our students greatly.
Being in a high school has really given me the opportunity to see how outside factors impact students in many different ways and how although it isn’t something we can control, as the teachers we can try to make their experience much better. Through building relationships we are able to understand our students and those outside factors better as well as try to stop the outside factors from impacting our classroom environment as much as possible.
My cooperating teacher has given me the opportunity to create notes slideshows and lessons to teach to my students. Through this I am able to teach my lesson and then conduct a check for understanding to see if how I taught my lesson and the curriculum I taught was developmentally correct for my students through conducting a check for understanding. I asked students a series of four questions based off of the curriculum that was taught. Some of the developmental outcomes that I have observed in high school are very interesting. Because I have high school students, we are doing lessons but because I am in a higher level chemistry class we take a lot of notes as this class is preparing students for college. Since many notes are taken it is up to the students whether or not they take the notes and that affects how they retain the information.
I will speak more about this in my final project but the day before I had my students complete the check for understanding I had them participate in a blooket (a popular online review game) that included questions that applied to the curriculum that they have been taught. The next day I shared 4 questions with students as their check for understanding. I asked the students to complete these questions as put their name at the top of the paper before turning them in. I think took what they turned in and went through and “corrected” it. By correcting I simply added notes to the students work for myself so I could track where they excelled and where they struggled. I then took the struggle points and review them with students in a different manor to how I taught them the first time.
By engaging in reflective practice I was able to re evaluate what I was doing as a teacher to help meet my students developmentally and help them exceed in their learning.
For my sophomore block placement I am placed in a large public high school. The school is built up of around 2,300 students from freshman to seniors with a variety of backgrounds and beliefs.
I am in three different classrooms during the day. My first classroom is a classroom of juniors and seniors and is an elective course for their last required science class, and is known as the easiest elective. I have two hours of this class.
First hour is a larger class and is the more focused and on track class. They complete their work with a smal distraction of their phones. The class is a little social amongst each other and they talk a little bit amongst eachother.
Second hour is completely the opposite. This is the exact same class and grade levels but a completely different group of students. This hour comes into class completely silent, sits down and takes out their phones. Second hour lacks the focus to complete their work in the allotted time in class and often has to do ‘busy work’ due to the distraction of their phones.
Third and fourth hours are very different. I am in a chemistry class third and fourth and it is an elective for the students final science class. These classes are made up of juniors and seniors. These classes are much more social and focused than my first two hours to begin. Students are engaged in their curriculum and complete their assignments in the allotted time. There is a large indicator of the students developmental levels for these students and that would be their interactions with each other. This week when completing a flame lab third hour worked cooperatively with their partners completing the lab while not getting off track whereas fourth hour students struggled. Not all fourth hour students struggled. Several junior boys thought that it would be a good idea to blow out eachother bunsen burners, they also thought that it would be a good idea to pour all of their salt solution onto their burner, this was not asked of them in the directions and in turn ruined their results. This helps demonstrate how student developmental levels vary within a classroom setting. 7th hour I am in the same classroom with another different mix of students, this class is comparable in developmental levels to the third hour students. They come into class, are social amongst each other, complete their work by following instructions and do so in a timely manner.
Finally my 6th and 8th hours I am in a sophomore biology class. This class is required as one of their science credits. This is a class that consists of sophmores, although they are in the same grades they are very different groups. 6th hour presents more struggles when it comes to developmental levels. 6th hour struggles greatly. Mant students lack motivation to complete their work, many try to sleep in class, or just choose to not complete their work. Those that choose to complete their work struggle to follow the directions to do so. 8th hour on the other hand is very different. 8th hour only has teo students that choose to not complete their work whereas all other students complete it. They do still struggle to follow directions at some points but are more successful compared to 6th hour.
By being able to teach multiple sections of the same class I am able to see the factors that indicate students’ different developmental stages.
This year I have been given the amazing opportunity of learning about education in a very hands on way, through the Saint Norbert College Village Project Tutor Program. When given the three options at the beginning of the year, tutor, after school volunteer, paid after school employee, there was something about the tutor program that was calling me. At the time I wasn’t sure what it was but now after this school year I 100% know why I chose it and I am so happy I did. So as I reflect on the amazing opportunities, I think it is only right to share my big ideas and takeaways.
The importance of giving back. Giving back is something very important. Throughout our lives we have been given so much in so many different ways through our education. From textbook learning to experiences that have prepared us for the real world, so now that we are in a position to give back it is important we do so. Through giving back we are helping out kids and showing them that learning can be fun.
How important role models are in life. Role models are important for everyone in life and through the village project that was very evident. As a future educator and a new tutor it was great having past educators as well as past tutors with us for support. It was also great to serve as a role model, the opportunity to model how fun learning can actually be fun and enjoyable.
How making your own “community” impacts your experience in such a positive way. Being in a school gave me such a great sense of community. From my students teacher and speech coach communicating with me so I could help my student get the most out of tutoring, to my tutor coach giving me activities that would help hone in his skills but also engage him in the activities that we were doing. By “using my resources” and the community of people around me and bringing them into my community helped me get the most out of my tutoring experience.
How connections with your student make learning much more fun. By taking a couple minutes at the beginning of our lesson to talk about what my student had done during school that day, what he had done that weekend, what he was looking forward to, etc. was a great way to build a connections. By building a connection I felt like it made it easier for my student to learn because we had that connection that he trusted me as we were learning and he felt comfortable to make mistakes.
Dignity helps you build better relationships with your students. When we think about Village project one thing we think about is dignity. It is something that is at the forefront of the program. When I cam in one thing that was very important to me was realizing, understanding, and appreciating that we all come from a different background. It was important to me to understand that we all have different backgrounds and beliefs and that is important to value and understand that to understand those around us better!
Engagement can make or break your lesson. Engagement and motivation are the most important part of learning. If the student is engaged and motivated they will learn to their full capacity. Engagement is something that was hard for me with my student, after a long day of school in reality the last thing he wanted to do was spend another 30 minutes so it was on me to come up with activities that would keep him engaged. This gave me an opportunity to try some new tactics to keep learning fun. Through this I was able to see how for some students movement embedded into the lesson helps them to learn to their full potential so through learning that I was then able to adapt my lesson plans to fit his need
Thinking on your feet is a skill you develop quickly and it helps you a lot in the long run! Above I talked about how engagement can make or break your lesson and how I had to learn to incorporate movement into my lesson for increased engagement. This leads me to my next takeaway, how you will learn how to think on your feet. I had a certain set of movement activities that I relied on to increase engagement, but some days, those didn’t work so then it was up to me to think on my feet and come up with a way to get my student engaged so he was ready to learn again. This allowed me to come up with new activities to do in-between activities that were new and fun since sometimes our usuals were not working.
It’s okay to ask questions if you have them especially if you feel like they will help your student learn better. This was something that played a big role in my time in the Village Project Program. At the beginning of the year we are given the academic information about our student that we need to know such as their reading level and the module they would be placed in. About three quarters of the way through the first semester of tutoring I noticed that my student was struggling to pronounce his /r/ sound. I did everything that I could think of to help him but it wasn’t working, so I turned to my tutor coach. My coach looked into it more and we learned that my student was actually in a speech class in school. I am so thankful that I asked my tutor coach about this as it helped me to create the best learning environment for my student and was able to understand his learning more!
You really are set up for future success! One thing that is a huge part of teaching is lesson plans and through the village project we were given the opportunity to read and understand lesson plans. Seeing examples of lesson plans, knowing how to read and understand them and use them to their full extent was something that in know will help me out greatly in the future.
Use your peers to your advantage and celebrate all the successes along the way with them! Your peers are there to help you so if you are struggling with something it’s okay to ask them for help, they probably have a different take so ask! They are also there to celebrate with you! Anytime one of us had success even if it was small we all celebrated it together because we were all in it together so when someone had a success we were there to cheer them on! This was such an amazing experience!
As a future educator we have beliefs that we will bring into our future classrooms and districts. Our views and beliefs about our teaching impact the atmosphere of our classrooms, how we teach, and how our students learn. As a future educator it is important to have a philosophy to lay the groundwork for your teaching and adapt your philosophy as needed.
Use your resources and those around you. As a future teacher, there are times when the struggle is real and you feel like you’re at a roadblock and can’t get past it. This semester of Village Project I ran into a roadblock and felt like my lessons were not getting through to my student. This is when I learned a very valuable piece of advice, use your resources and those around you. This helped me out so much, I took that piece of advice and leaned on my tutor coaches and peers for help. They gave me so many ideas and I felt like my lessons were getting through to my student. Being able to lean on them for support when I was struggling was amazing and they gave me so much support, help, and confidence.
Another thing I believe is that as a teacher I need to adapt to my students’ learning needs. We know that all students come in at different levels in their learning and with different learning styles. As a teacher it is very important to me that I am able to understand how my students learn best so that I can construct my lesson plans to fit what they need. I also feel that as a teacher that if you know your students’ learning styles your students will learn the most they can out of your lesson.
I also believe that hands-on learning, also known as constructivism, is an integral part to a student’s learning, especially in the sciences. I believe that by actively participating in hands-on-learning it helps with students’ cognitive development and understanding of the content. I also think that through hands-on-learning students are actively engaged and consume more of the curriculum.
Engagement will help your students succeed in the classroom. Engagement keeps students focused and interested in what they are learning. If students lack engagement they will not retain the knowledge as well so as teachers it is our job to create lessons that are engaging. I added this into my philosophy because this semester in my village project placement is where I learned the importance of engagement. By finding new and fun ways to keep my student entertained and engaged while still learning, I saw such a growth in his skill and how well he was comprehending the material. Engagement helps your students get out the most of your teaching and their learning experience and will help them succeed to their fullest potential.
My biggest belief is that the energy, time, and effort you put into your students will be reciprocated by your students. If your students see how much you care about them as not only learners, but as people, they will reciprocate the energy you put into them back to you through their work. Kids truly want to see that you care and it makes them feel good and want to do well!
All students deserve to have a learning environment where they feel comfortable, safe and where they can learn their best. For some students the classroom can be an uncomfortable setting, there are too many distractions, the chairs are uncomfortable, their desk wobbles, they are too far from the board to see, etc. The thought of students having distractions that are fixable is something that I want to fix in my future classroom. Whether a student needs flexible seating, to be closer to the board, etc. I believe that it can help students learn to the best of their abilities. I also feel like the classroom can be a hard place for students to learn due to the fear of making mistakes. This is something that is extremely common in students and something that I feel can be fixed. As a teacher it is our responsibility to make sure that all students feel comfortable enough in our classroom so that they can not only make mistakes, because it is completely normal, but also ask questions to learn from their mistakes.
I have had the opportunity to be a teacher assistant in a sixth grade science classroom, and through that experience I have been able to realize parts of my teaching philosophy in action. I was also able to gain more parts of my philosophy and see what works best in many classrooms. Outside of school I am a tennis coach which has also played a key role in developing my teaching philosophy. I have also been able to determine some of my beliefs through Education 101 and my experience in the Village Project. Both of these experiences have given me an opportunity to see different views and hear from different educators about their own philosophies.
My philosophy has also been built through all my years of schooling and through things that I loved that my teachers did. My kindergarten teacher, Ms. Banks, taught me the importance of structure in the classroom no matter what age. She also began my love of learning and my desire to be a teacher. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Kaster, showed me the importance of kindness in the classroom and taught us that we are all different and how to embrace our differences. My sixth grade teacher and the person I was a teacher assistant for, Mr. Herzog, taught me the value of hands-on learning and how amazing it can be and how it deepens students’ understanding. He also taught me the importance of being flexible in the classroom and how important it is to build a bond/relationship with your students. Mr. Herzog also gave me the love I have of science because of how amazing his class was. Last, but certainly not least, Mrs. Herzog taught me how taking the time to get to know your students and understand them and their lives can really make a difference. She taught me the value of generosity, no matter how little it may be, a little goes a long way. Mr. and Mrs. Herzog both taught me the importance of communication with students’ families and the positive difference it can make.
As a future educator, I can only hope that my philosophy can benefit my students in the best possible way, and I know that adaptation of my philosophy will help me become the best educator that I can be. I look forward to my future opportunities as a teacher and cannot wait to see what the future holds.
This semester I have had the opportunity to be a tutor through the village project at SNC. Here are 10 takeaways from the experience:
It is such a cool experience to see a group of college students come together and give back to their community. Being able to come together with a group of fellow students and give back to the community has been such a rewarding experience.
It is such a cool thing to see your student make connection between what you are working on and things that they are doing in the classroom. Seeing their lightbulb go off is such a cool experience!
It’s really fun to not only see your student make the connection but it is cool as a college student to be able to make a connection from what you are learning in your class and being able to apply it to what you are doing.
I realized how much taking time with a student 1 on 1 can really improve their skill set and give them confidence. By being able to work 1 on 1 with my student I have been able to see him make leaps and bounds in his skill set and confidence.
It is really important to collaborate with your peers/co-workers and those around you. Being able to collaborate with others who were teaching the same thing I was and being able to see the spin they were putting on it was a really cool opportunity and I learned a bunch of great new strategies from them.
It’s been amazing to have such amazing classmates who are always there to cheer on your successes. Having such an amazing team has been amazing!
It’s a great learning experience with lesson plans, even if they are given to you. This experience has been a great opportunity to learn how to read and apply lesson plans, something I will have to do often as a teacher.
It is a rewarding experience seeing your students har work pay off. Throughout this time I have been able to see my student work super hard and it is truly amazing because I have been able to see all of his hard work pay off.
It really makes you feel good when you are able to see your student become comfortable and really build that relationship. It was really cool to see him get comfortable and share more about his day and what he did at school. It may be a small thing but it is really a cool experience.
Overall, the village project has really been a rewarding experience and it has been such an amazing opportunity to give back to the community.
When asked why I want to become an educator, I always have the same answer. “To inspire my students, give back to my community, and to make an impact on the community around me.” Not only is that why I want to become a teacher but I believe that it is also what I can do for the common good as an educator.
As an educator/teacher we spend our time education, teaching, and shaping the future of society. As a teacher I believe that it is my job to help shaped the future and teach them not just on what they need to know in school but life skills as well. When we think about it besides our family, our teachers are really our first community members/people outside our family that we learn things from. Our teachers also us help about not just the material that they are teaching but they teach us life lessons, and things about the world around us.
As a teacher I hope to teach my students something about life, whether it is simply to be kind to everyone around you because you never know what they are going through or something deeper. While I hope they learn about science from me I also hope that they learn something about life, because thats what I feel like I can do for the common good as an educator. I can teach they something that they can go out into the world and have in their life toolbox!
For my entire life I have dreamed of being a teacher. The inspiration coming from my many amazing teachers over the years and my parents who always supported me. Since I have had this dream for som many years the excitement and concerns have definitely built themselves up.
Let’s start with the positive and what I am so excited for, and trust me, I am very excited. Although it may sound not that exciting to some, I am very excited to be able to decorate and have my own classroom. There is something about having your own space that you get to decorate and make yours that is very exciting to me. Another thing that I am very excited about is the ability to design lessons and experiments so that my students are able to learn the most possible and have fun while doing so. The thing I am most excited for though is building relationships with students and staff and the amazing impact that I hope to have on students. Teachers are such amazing people and I hope that I can be as inspirational to my future students like my teachers were to me.
There is one concern or fear that I have and that would be a students lack of motivation and leading to them failing. As a teacher we put so much of ourselves into out students, we give them our all and most students give us their all back, but sometimes in our careers we will have students who don’t give us that back. We put our heart and soul into our students but there is only so much that can be done on our end and the rest is left up to the student. This is a fear of mine because I obviously I want every student to pass and do their best but in some situations you have exhausted all your resources and it is left up to the student. That is something that is a concern of mine because I just want every student to be amazing and be super successful, but I have to realize that sometimes it is out of my control and there is nothing more I can do. That is honestly my biggest fear and something that I know will be a challenge that I have to face in my future but I am more than ready to conquer it.
