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.

I feel that education is an important aspect in a person’s life. My philosophy regarding education is that all children are unique and need a stimulating educational environment where they can develop and grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. Every child deserves to obtain the best education possible, regardless of special needs. I believe that I owe it to my students, as well as the community, to bring inclusion, consistency, attentiveness, and warmth to my job with the hope that I can encourage and inspire such traits in the students as well.

An affluent stable community in the middle of southwest Minneapolis surrounds the students at Southwest High school. The school promotes community and cultural reflection across all classes. In observing a teacher in this school I found they are very passionate for the multicultural curriculum as well as offering many opportunities for students to use critical thinking across all subjects.

disciplines. Since this class was used for formal instruction, I noticed that they never had a hard time with subtle refinements. These students used appropriate levels of vocabulary while answering questions and understanding the complex syntactic structures of the teacher’s PowerPoint. Although I didn’t notice any such grammar structures or phonology, I did notice how automatic they were with recognizing common words. One of the students had noticed that in the PowerPoint the teacher had used the wrong “new”. The teacher praised the student because he was even unaware he had used “new” instead of “knew” in his instruction. This showed me the ability of how late adolescence automatically recognizes critically evaluation of texts. I wish I had observed a child where they were ELL, but I thought this helped me see the developmental trends of different age groups. I thought everything I have learned in this class thus far, abstracts the idea of a child’s cognitive process theory. These students were advanced, proving that the child’s unique experiences lead to differences in their pathways to proficiency and how they communicate. I thought it was great to hear the sarcasm the teacher used with his students to interrupt the text. For example, he had made a joke about Julius Caesar’s wife and how ugly she actually was. The students laughed and really connected to his humor. I asked the teacher why he liked teaching 10th grade and he said “because I can say and act in different

To begin the Faculty assignment I first started by trying to email professors using the faculty information document provided. Of all the specialties available under the Business degree, management and marketing most interested me. This is due to the fact that I have an ample amount of experience working in restaurants. Often while performing tasks such as endlessly sweeping floors, scraping gum off tables, talking down agitated customers and so on, I found my mind wondering. Aside from thinking about how much I was utterly and wholly adoring my tasks, I thought about what it would be like to run the establishment. I wondered what it would be like to manage others and plotted ways in which I could improve upon my manager’s skills in the area of management. Because of my curiosity for management I really wanted to speak with someone who is knowledgeable in the area. After sending a few emails to multiple instructors and not receiving any reply I decided it was time for a face to face interview.

I believe that education is the process of ongoing growth within an individual. This process begins at a young age, almost at birth. This individual is born with certain interests and powers that shape them. Through education these individual powers or interests are continuously shaped, forming new habits, ideas, feelings, and emotions. An individual will eventually be able to share their ideas, feelings, and emotions, and become a member with in the American society.

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

In the classroom that I am observing my teacher teaches government and econ. On Friday September, 22nd I observed an econ class where the teacher said he was going to use his brother as an example for a credit card debt work sheet that he put up on the projector screen. The sheet used the highest possible interest rate (23%). The teacher than gave the students the formula to calculate how much interest would be paid on a sum of money. In this example the teacher said his brother was fifty five thousand dollars in debt. The teacher then asked the students to find how much interest his brother would have to pay. At this point in the class a few of the students moved quickly to remove their calculator from their backpacks and worked to figure the equation and give the teacher a correct answer. One student who we will name Jane gave the teacher an answer. The teacher then asked the class if they thought Jane had given the correct answer they all nodded their heads in agreement. The teacher then told Jane good job and moved to the next question. Before the teacher could explain the next question a student we will name Rick asked why the interest rate was so high. To which the teacher replied “well Rick in your case when you get you first credit card your interest rate will be close to this amount” to which Rick replied why is that. The teacher then explained how credit worked and that interest rates were based off of your credit and how likely you are to pay back a loan. The

Since our group was the only physical education group in the class, I feel like our strength was the ability to bring energy to the classroom. We all did a great job at being energetic and keeping the students engaged in the lesson. We also did a nice job on our delivery and giving multiple medias for learning the material. I thought a strength of our planning and delivery was the activity in our lesson to apply the knowledge learned. As a group we did a good job at going through the rules and applying them to the classroom.

This reflection focuses on ELCC Standard 4.1, due to the fact that I had to collaborate with administration, teachers (regular and special education), board members, facilities, parents, and students in order to develop a topic, plan, and carry out a Parent University. After discussing topics with my mentor, we decided that the topic for this Parent University should be the new PowerSchool Unified Classroom Program. The purpose of getting this new PowerSchool program was to improving the overall educational experience for students and parents by having one program that parents, students, and teachers can use to access grades, attendance, discipline, and teacher websites/homework information. The district transitioned to PowerSchool Unified Classroom as a result of parents and students complaining about having to go to five different sites just to get homework (Moodle, Schoology, etc.). Parents and students can not only view all of these components, but this program also streamlines communication between the school and home. In order for the use of Unified Classroom to actually improve the educational experience, parents need to know how to use the program.

Since taking this class, my mind has been opened to so many new ideas and perspectives about the society we live in, and teaching in general. I have always considered myself to be an open-minded person, and have always striven to be socially aware. I would make sure to be on date with current social events that were happening and especially during the election, I made sure to know all sides of a topic before trying to talk about it. When I had to sign up for this class last semester, I thought that it would be easy, and that we would not talk about anything I did not already know. I thought I was socially aware about everything at the time, and that I did not need to be educated anymore on the topic of multiculturalism. Well, having been in this class for half a semester I can honestly say that I have learned more in the last eight weeks than I have taught myself. I feel like I have been able to broaden my multicultural lens extensively since starting that class, and I know that it will continue to widen as the semester goes on.

In the classroom where I am doing student teaching I have observed students utilizing a science notebook only three times in the school year so far. Some schools have clusters, while other schools integrate science into their curriculum through other subject such as reading and writing. According to one teacher, the students receive science instruction through STEM, which creates more of a focus for her teaching in social studies instead of science. At my assigned school, the students receive instruction in their native language in science one day and social studies the next. Most teachers put a lot of planning into ELA and math, but not a lot of planning into the science lessons that are part of the curriculum. Part of my belief that science isn’t taught at the same level as other subjects is that teachers don’t feel confident enough when it comes to different science topics.

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

Educational philosophy varies person to person. I have the opportunity in my practicum to not only see one, but two educators with philosophies much different from my own. Now, understanding that one of these educators is in her final stages of her educator program, I will still refer to her as an educator in this instance. I feel she is making a big impact on these kids, weather good or bad is out of my hands, but she definitely makes the dynamics of the class room unique. Mr. Sam (teacher) and Miss. Jane (student teacher) are definitely essentialists with a little bit of perennials thrown into the mix. Now, the thing I find most interesting about them is how similar they are, so when I refer to them as not individuals, this is why. I myself, am more of a progressivist, and I find in my observations I don’t plan on running my room the same way.