After reading the assigned readings for week
one and reflecting on last week’s class, I have created goals I hope to achieve
as I participate and learn throughout the literacy section of TE 402. One primary goal I have throughout this
course is to incorporate each of the learning principles presented in the
textbook, Literacy for the 21st Century, into my
teaching. Each student learns
differently, and finding out the unique ways in which students learn to their
optimum potential is very important to a teacher. In addition, using different types of teaching styles can
keep students inspired and motivated throughout the year. Understanding my students’ styles of
learning will be a very important aspect to my teaching, and I hope this course
can give me pointers to help guide me to each student’s success.
Another goal that I want to accomplish
throughout this course is to learn several literacy-teaching methods to
effectively teach and help ELLs (English language learners). I am getting a minor in TESOL, so I
have studied a few methods on teaching ELLs and have been a part of an ESL classroom,
but I want to learn more in-depth methods that can help me reach every
learner. Not only do I want to
effectively teach these learners, but I also want to make sure that I am keeping
focus on students who are not considered ELLs. Finding these types of strategies in the classroom will be
difficult, but I am ready to explore these types of methods.
The last goal I have for this course is to
study practical uses of technology in the classroom. I am still thinking about this concept from our first class
session, and I want to familiarize myself with this aspect of learning. I had a course last semester, which
focused on technology used within the special education classroom, and I was
very interested and ready to implement these strategies into my teaching. However, when creating my concept map about
ELA, I failed to incorporate this important detail into my literacy instruction. I want to be able to see myself using
technology in the future through this course. This is very important to me and I hope I can accomplish
this task.
In
regards to the type of community I want to teach in, I would love to see myself
teaching in any type of special education classroom. My ideal setting would be an elementary school special
education classroom, because I feel I would love to teach children and begin
their learning experiences.
However, whichever type of classroom I teach, I’m sure I will
enjoy! I just want the opportunity
to instill knowledge I have learned on my students. The literacy methods I learn in TE 402 will help me create
authentic lessons for students to engage in.
I think this course can help supply me with
authentic teaching methods and practices that can influence students to want to learn and become motivated. If I take anything away from this
course, I want to be able to apply what I learn in this class to my own
classroom. I want to be a unique
teacher and make students WANT to learn and strive to be the best they
can. This semester is going to be
great, and I cannot wait to see what is in store for this course!
I think Lindsay has provided some excellent goals for her future as a teacher, and I share many of the goals she talked about in her post. I really enjoyed the Tompkins reading and am excited to work towards implementing those principles in my future classroom. I also want to create authentic lessons for all my students, including special needs and ELL students. Because I haven't taken any classes devoted to the subject of ELL, one of my goals would be to learn more about ELL students and incorporate useful teaching strategies in my classroom for ELL students.
ReplyDeleteLindsay also talked about one of her goals being to incorporate technology into a classroom, and I also share that goal. I never grew up with a lot of technology in my house, and therefore was never really good at using it which led to me now being hesitant to implement it in my classroom. I want to learn effective ways to enhance my teaching using technology without relying on it to teach my students.
I also want to teach in an elementary school, but I hope to teach in an urban setting. Depending on where I'm teaching, there may be limited resources which may hinder my ability to use technology during instruction. No matter where I end up, I hope to incorporate as much technology as I can in order to foster a learning environment suitable for all students.
I am excited to learn more this semester about my goals and how to be a better teacher!
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ReplyDeleteLindsay, I think you have some great goals for this course – many of which I also share! Like you, I am getting a minor in TESOL and I am really interested in learning literacy teaching methods to effectively teach and help ELL students. I have my 494 placement this semester, and I think it will be very helpful to observe all of the “theory” we learn in those classes in action. What methods have you learned so far to help ELL students that have been really effective?
DeleteWhat struck me most about the Tompkins reading was the making a classroom a community bit. I think we can often tell when we go into those few special classrooms that somehow this teacher has gone beyond creating a cooperative classroom, but has created a family. I remember for me growing up that happened in my 5th grade class. You could even compare it to this TE class. The environment is very open and ideal conditions for learning. It would be interesting to go back and evaluate what factors helped this succeed. (Part of it might have been comradery though shared science struggles.) The article was helpful, but I think it is one thing to read about it in a text book and another to actually do it. That is one reason I am glad that MSU has a full year of student teaching. You discussed wanting to also be mindful of the non-ELL students in your class, which I think is a really hard struggle. We learn so much about how to teach all these different type of students, but what we don’t really ever talk about is how to teach 25 of them at once.
When you talked about your ideal community you wanted to teach in, you said you would love to see yourself in any type of special education classroom. Have you given thought to what that might mean – urban, suburban, rural? As a special education teacher, what might be different in each? Like Mary, I want to teach in an urban district. The Fleming article was interesting and I wonder how it compares to the other articles – hopefully we will get to talk about them in class. It was written about a group of teachers that discussed the issues of working in an urban district, so naturally they were going to want to vent a bit, but the article focused a lot on the negative aspects of teaching in urban areas which was unfortunate. I would have liked to have seen some sort of balance with the positives of urban teaching, or the added resources actually available to urban schools. Mary you talked about not having technology in an urban school – very true – but there are grants or other resources available that more suburban districts might not have access to. I wish we learned more about that though in our TE classes. The answer for under-resourced is always “write grants” but we are never taught what that even means or how you do it.
Like you and Mary, I am very excited for this semester and look forward to learning from my peers. Good thing we have the best blogging group!