Education Reflection Paper

As postmodern educators feel their way through an ever changing multicultural classroom environment, it is imperative that each hold firmly to their philosophical positions and do not let society influence them in a negative way. At the same time all teachers should be continually reflecting inwardly to make oneself accountable to their profession.

FIVE YEAR EDUCATION/CAREER GOALS? My five year plan is to become an assistant principal within my county. I want to impact my county with a positive influence, with a direction that is clear and where teachers and students can succeed.

Over the last sixteen weeks I have grown in so many ways that have affected my view on education today. Our world and education today is much different than what it was in the past. I think a major misconception about teaching is that we just teach curriculum, however, teachers serve many different roles in their classrooms and schools. These roles are created because of many different factors, such as sociometric status, poverty levels, and school systems. As we learned in our class, students react to these different factors in many ways and these are main reasons that will affect a classroom. In this essay, I will be discussing our navigations through the social justice issues and other factors that classrooms face by talking about the key points of our class throughout the semester.

In the classroom I observe, there are 32 students equally broken up into sixteen boys and sixteen girls. Each one of these students has their own personal chrome book. A chrome book is like a mini laptop that the teacher can assign the students assignments and assessments. A chrome book can be used for any subject. Some example programs on the chrome book are type club, math, writing, educational YouTube, and dictionaries. I see the use of chrome books as a great technology used in the classroom. Back when I was an elementary school student, I did not have chrome books in my classroom. The first lesson I observed on a chrome book was a math lesson. The teacher assigned through her computer a particular practice assessment to the students. The students then clicked to open the assignment and began. I found this technology helpful because if a student was stuck on a question, there was a video tutorial for them to view specific to the question. In fact, there was a specific video tutorial for each one of the questions. At the end, students were able to see how they did immediately. They are able to see their progress toward the actual test coming up. The teacher was also able to see the class statistics overall, and statistics to each question. This let the teacher know what the class struggled with and what should be taught again. Chrome books definitely caught my attention. Technology grows everyday and schools have to keep up with the change. It is interesting to me, to see

On October 31, 2017, I observed at P.S. 45 and was truly bewitched by the entire experience (and not just because it was Halloween!). Antecedent to this observation, I first met class 3-213 the week prior, when they had a substitute teacher. In contrast to their roaring and uncontrollable performance at that time, one could clearly distinguish their significant change in behavior with Mrs. Diaz in the room. Mrs. Diaz is able to control the class with just the sound of her voice or snap of her fingers. It was exhilarating to see how well-behaved and attentive the children were to her. Additionally, my cooperating teacher was extremely helpful and even thoroughly explained to me her methods on classroom management. Mrs. Diaz informed me that she is rather stern with the children and continuously uses positive reinforcement throughout the day. Due to their drastic change in behavior and return to normalcy, I was able to witness Mrs Diaz us key instructional strategies and techniques.

Previously teaching was something that teachers did. The role of teachers was known to be the center of the classroom, they were expected to know everything about a subject matter and be able to explain it well to students. The role of the students was to learn by listening, practicing and working hard. We now know that teaching and learning are closely related. By understanding the relationship of teaching and learning we can understand the concept of Mathematizing. Mathematizing is the process of constructing meaning. This is accomplished by letting students develop their own strategies and questions and letting them explore them through classroom discussion with their peers. (Young Mathematicians at work) This can also be accomplished by allowing students to use real world examples to help deepen their understanding of the concepts.My understanding of this topic has evolved over this course I was always viewed teachers as the know it all of the classroom and the students roll was to retain as much as possible because they were going to need to use it on a test in the future. Learning the new concept of mathematizing I recognize that a teacher must also act as a facilitator of the classroom. Allowing students to think freely make mistakes and make sense of problems and concepts on their own. While also leaving space for the students to teach the teacher or help the teacher understand what they are thinking and how they came to their answer.

We can all image the same things when we think of learning; a group of students that are sitting in a classroom, being taught by a teacher or professor. This is true for most instances of learning, but when we take a closer look, we can see many different things taking places in the various classrooms across the education system. Three pictures have been presented, showcasing visual learning, kinesthetic learning (hands on learning), and auditory learning. They each have the same general setting, but as we zoom in on the specifics, a lot is revealed that we may not realize is a factor in learning. The similarities of the pictures, the differences of the pictures, and the norms that the pictures showcase all affect the knowledge that the students gain from the styles of learning shown.

Everyday teachers make decisions that influences student’s opportunities to enhance their learning through different content areas. Thus, it is essential as a teacher to draw upon the content knowledge you want your students to take away from your class but it is also equally important to equip your students with skills that will help them outside of the academic realm as well.

As I have assessed various theories and ideas pertaining to education and human development, I have made a sincere effort to reflect on my own experiences as an education professional. Our readings about student development and our analyses and discussions surrounding the challenges that current education systems pose have not only opened my eyes to deep-rooted, systemic flaws in ideology and practice, but they have also allowed me to seek out deeper meaning with regard to my current role as a professional of higher education. For my reflective essay I would like to highlight some of my experiences in the field working in continuing education, or non-credit programming for adult learners, and how postmodernist ideology has become a tool through which we seek solutions for those who have been disserviced by our current education system. Specifically, I will reflect on why students are often underserved as a result of traditional educational models, and how continuing education programs offer viable, postmodernist solutions to a broken system.

I have been asked to reflect on what the world may be like in 2020 and how will those changes affect education. In addition, I have been asked to share how the innovations in the classroom affect others and how being a teacher will be different in 2020 versus today. Let me reflect on these inquiries for you and share my predictions based off of topics we have discussed in this course as well as current world happenings.

The year is 2011 and it is the start of a new year in a new school. I was quite nervous, as I had not met a lot of the kids coming from the other elementary school that would collaborate with my school to create Driver Middle School. I knew these would be the kids I would be with for the rest of my school career until college, so I knew I had to make it a good year. That’s when it happened; the atrocious news article for our school paper.

The information gained during this assignment was insightful, and the information will be useful in my future classroom. When conducting my teacher interviews both of the teachers spoke of how crucial it is for new teachers to understand the importance of pre-assessing students and the importance of continued assessment of students throughout the year. According to the answers from the teacher interviews, the data collected throughout the assessment process is the best way for teachers to determine how to group students. For example, Miss. Phillips states, “When analyzing data for say my kindergarten reading group I may group students based on who has one to one, comprehension, fluency, high-frequency words, and meaning when reading.” On the other hand for math Miss. Phillips states, “…I generally use my standards and then group based on abilities of one-to-one counting, number recognition, numeral writing, addition/subtraction, etc. I use assessments to analyze the data and even regroup students as I need to for both math and reading.” Furthermore, when Mrs. Haynes was asked the same question she responded with, “Having heterogeneous groups for math and literacy workstations is very beneficial. Students are able to model and demonstrate work for other students. This allows students to potentially work independently, while teachers pull small groups (for guided reading, guided math and guided writing).”

After completing Module Two, I feel I have a clearer understanding of each of the five core competencies of SEL, and how to begin implementing in the classroom to help the students develop the social and emotional skills, which will help them in education and in life.

I have been part of the education system since the age of four. From Preschool to twelfth grade, a lot has changed throughout my education. I can assert that education has altered my of way of thinking, especially from elementary to now. Because of education my life has improved in all aspects.

Walking into the first two weeks of the EDU program I desired to experience what it would be like to be a future educator and have a grasp of how to help the molding of our youth and giving them the possibility to become future leaders. Doctor dresser was able to bring in a Concordia alumni who had just begun to experience his professional education, career and is teaching multiple different grade levels as a young teacher. When he first walked into the classroom my first impressions were that unfortunately he looked very inexperienced and unsure of what was to be expected of the lecture I thought to myself in the position of a younger student in his classroom this is a person I would not take seriously. He then proceeded to communicate