21st Century Reflection Paper

As a math teacher, I answer the following question at least once a week: “Am I going to use this in my life?” The first thing that comes to my mind is: “You will use math to pay your taxes, take your car to a mechanic, compare the number of hours worked and your paycheck”, among others. “When a topic connects to what students like to do, engagement deepens as they willingly spend time thinking, dialoguing, and creating ideas in meaningful ways. Making learning contextual to real-world experiences is a key learning technique with differentiating for student interests.” (McCarthy, 2014). Knowing the interests of my students is essential for them in order to master the material being covered in class. In addition, this gives me the opportunity to create a differentiating classroom. A few months ago I talked with the administration in my school and I let them know that my desire is that students have the opportunity to go to college or university to complete a degree,

As a future practitioner, I believe that being able to evaluate our teaching practices and critically reflect on the way they

Science Instructional Analysis and Methods class has afforded me countless learning experiences which I have taken into my intern classroom. I have several take away for this fall’s science methods course. The first being, in Methods class I learned to work in distinct groups of with peers of various levels. My peers who are experiencing classroom teaching for the first time and the graduate interns. Surprisingly, I learned from working with both of these groups. From the graduate level students, I was able to actually make a connection with the content we read about in our text and experiences I had everyday in internship. I appreciate the opportunity, as I felt safe and free to ask questions about the experiences they had in teaching science. I commend you on the way you had broken up the class groups, and afforded us to work with different groups. During this process, I feel I have started to find my voice as a professional. This opportunity allowed me to be more confident to voice my ideas to the teachers I worked with in internship, as I contribute to my PLC group.

On September 6, 2017, I were documented for an incident that involved a University Housing policy violation. I was charged with violating the University Housing Alcohol 1.2 policy. With my violation, came consequences. I met with The Residence Conduct Coordinator to discuss my actions and came to the conclusion that I would have to schedule a meeting with The Campus Alcohol and Drug Education Center (CADEC) and with that, a reflection paper.

Within the Inspiring Education document, the vision for core competencies in 21st century learning requires a “shift away from traditional dissemination of information and re-call of facts” (Alberta Education, 2010) and instead focuses on student centered learning models of inquiry and discovery. This shift in educational practice requires students to acquire new abilities and focus on “higher-order thinking skills, deeper learning outcomes, and complex thinking and communication skills” (Saavedra, 2012) and involves teachers creating appropriate instructional and assessment practices.

I will provide access to information and teach that the path to finding answers can be as informative, if not more, than finding answers. Students need to be allowed to find answers for themselves rather than handed the solutions to problems. This provides opportunity for self-discovery, independence and growth.

In order for education to develop within schools, we need to provide students with skills and knowledge to be successful in life and to enter the 21st Century workforce

I believe that students learn best through experiences and hands-on activities. It is my job to show the students what we are learning and why, so through my teaching, they should never question what we are doing. I want my students to come into the classroom each day excited to learn because they know that we are going to be doing something fun and exciting. Although they will be having fun, they will be learning too because I will create lesson plans that are engaging and also very full of content. I want the content and activities to be open in order for the children to make connections. In order to begin a lesson and decide what activities I will do, I will provide a pretest in order to see what the students already know and can do. The pretest will also serve as an intro into what the students will be learning, so they know what we are going to learn and what is expected from them by the end of the

I believe that effective teaching should focus on implementing higher-order thinking skills, project-based learning opportunities, collaborative experiences, open-ended explorations, technology-embedded activities, and even flipped classrooms. Teachers need to be constantly reflective and flexible, while using a variety of teaching strategies, so they can adjust their teaching and be able to make a plan that will to meet the diverse needs of all students and encourage students to be active partners in the process.

Considering all of my lessons this semester, my main strength would be modeling the lesson for the students and praising the students with positive reinforcement. I feel as the students remained engaged and they were always willing to participate, which allowed them to meet all of the objectives in my lesson. I was impressed with how well much the students remembered and understood from my lessons. I presented the instruction and goals for the lesson prior to beginning the activity. During the lesson, I frequently asked the students questions in order for the students to remain thinking as well as focused.

Living in the modern era of today can leave many people star struck at the incredible amount of change in the world over the past ten or twenty years. Technology has made giant advancements, but science was not the only item to change; the ideas of the world have transformed also, some for the better and some for the worst. Modernization of thought prompts people in leadership roles of children to encourage new thinking, breaking down the supposed oppressive rules of society holding back the future.

I believe that you get what you give and maybe other people also feel the way I feel. It considers

Life changing… it is a word that I sometimes think about, but never truly understood its’ meaning, until the summer of 2017. During church one morning my pastor was standing up on the stage in front of the congregation giving the announcements for the week. The final announcement was regarding a summer mission trip for high school students. The students would go to Reynosa, Mexico where there is a children’s home that my church serves at every year. I had never been on a mission trip and had never experienced anything like it before, so I decided that I would go on what could be a life-changing trip.

Since the beginning of the semester, my writing has changed and evolved to accommodate and sustain longer essays. With longer essays, there is more room for in-depth analysis. Further analyzing a topic has led me to findings that I did not know existed. As I continue to write, I uncover addition and superior methods to approach my writing to the benefit of me and therefore, my audience. Throughout the semester, I have incorporated techniques to further my narrative throughout my writing.

I have made three salient contributions to the LGBTQ movement and LGBTQ rights. The most noteworthy, in my opinion, was my contribution to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). I was awarded a full scholarship to attend Stetson University and compete for the tennis team as a Division I athlete. During my tenure, I had noticed the discourse surrounding LGBTQ+ athletes had been minimally harmful. I was closeted for three out of the four years as an undergrad. In these years, I both witnessed and was regularly the target of disparaging remarks on the basis of character or perceived sexual orientation. These petty remarks, fueled by ignorance, started to accumulate and I increasingly grew aware of how these remarks became more hostile when the subject was at the intersection of race, gender expression, and sexuality.