Educational Reflection

My time spent in the Clinical setting, so far, has been extremely inciteful as to how to become a better educator in a classroom setting. Through the data I collected I was able to connect Borich’s Seven Variables of learning to the students. By being in the clinical setting for nearly two months, I have been exposed to new ways of thinking when it comes to structuring a classroom and instructing a classroom. Within this reflection you will find out how I would better plan an effective lesson for the pupils in my future classroom. You will also discover what I will do about certain issues in the classroom and how I will address/fix them.

“Accountability is incredibly important for the school systems. People shouldn't fear accountability, they ought to welcome an accountability system as a useful tool to make sure no child is left behind” George Bush quoted. When the No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2001, president George Bush along with many other people had different expectations at that time. Expectations that included improvement in testing scores, progress increase in grades along with improvement in teachers. For a short period of time this appeared to have worked, however with the course of time it is evident that NCLB has many flaws that have reflected in the outcome.

Today’s emphasis on school and teacher accountability has taken the focus away from our main objective which is student learning and achievement. The rise of both school and teacher accountability became a detrimental aftermath of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. The NCLB Act of 2001 set about using state-mandated assessments to hold schools accountable for a student’s performance on the standardized tests with the purpose of closing the achievement gaps among all students regardless of race, class or disability, while attaching high-stake consequences to

Teacher evaluations have four different parts, 50% comes from student’s growth on standardized testing and the other 50% has subsets

Over the last couple of weeks, I have noticed a variety of pedagogical decisions my teacher uses. She teaches a lot of her lessons in a whole group setting. Furthermore, within the whole groups settings she teaches a lot of rules and content. For example, the students were reading “The Eye of the Storm”, which is about a storm chaser travelling to Florida to capture and document Hurricane Andrew. She questioned the students about what he does for a living. The students answered a storm chaser; however, the teacher then asked why he would choose a career that is potentially dangerous. One student said, “I think he chose this career because his job could tell us how dangerous the storm is, and he could compare this storm to future storms and

Ever since President George W. Bush implemented the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act in 2002, states across the nation have developed a wide array of methods to keep education systems accountable. When identifying the role the NCLB has in America’s education systems, Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Arizona Jill Koyama determined that the NCLB act requires “… states [to] implement accountability systems that assess students annually and, based on those assessments, determine whether schools and districts are making adequate yearly progress” (549). Therefore, the NCLB was originally created to incentivize learning in schools which lack adequate results and to provide additional funding to these persistently low

The American education system often conjures up images of classrooms, students and teachers. Yet it can also be a point of political contention. The educational system is complex and intended to encompass all students so they can further their education and essentially their futures. However, the real question is in its effectiveness. After all, if there is no way to show that students are actually learning, then it renders the idea of schooling moot. That is why education policy in recent decades has turned towards a system of accountability in order to assess the effectiveness of schooling in the nation. A major piece of legislation that follows this philosophy is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, otherwise

For my lesson, I used your instruction feedback to change the meat of my lesson. I kept your ideas because I really thought they would help my teaching go a lot smoother. I really liked how you choose the words beginning, middle, and end to describe to Ellie what I expected from her when comprehending what I read to her. I also thought that your wording was a lot better than mine. I thought that your feedback helped make my lesson become a lot stronger than it was before.

The lesson was and remains the basic form of the organization of the educational process. The essence of the lesson is the organization by the teacher of a diverse work of students in the assimilation of new knowledge, skills, and development. A modern lesson in math is a lesson in which the teacher skillfully uses all possible forms of organizing the cognitive activity of students. My cooperating teacher is a perfect example of it.

Education is viewed differently for everyone, some think it is the easiest thing to accomplish, others cannot last more than half an hour in a classroom without feeling lost. In my own experience, I bit off more than I could chew when I decided to take AP Language. I went into my junior year thinking I was going to be an amazing student and stay on top of my assignments and once they started stacking my grade started falling. I thought the class wasn’t going to be a challenge for me because I left my sophomore honors class with an A. Boy was I wrong, half of the time the teacher would blow my mind with knowledge then leave me in a “what just happened” mental state. I wasn’t really grasping what the teacher was saying. It was not the teacher’s fault I just didn’t pick up what she was putting down it was like my mind was shutting down. I got to point where I wanted to drop the class. I would be in my room trying to think of ways I could drop the class and still stay on track for my honors diploma. I finally had the guts to go to my counselor to switch classes,but by that time it was too late. My idiotic prideful self didn’t want to go in and get help. until my grade dropped to a low C. Then I had to choose between life and pride, because my mom wouldn’t let me see the light of day if I brought home a C. When I left the counselor's office, I thought all hope was lost there was no way in hell I was going to get an A or B in the class. Until Mrs. Cannaday threw a rainbow into

My path to the education field relied heavily on the context in which I grew up, and the demographic environment had a bigger hand in that decision than I probably considered at the time. Throughout my elementary years, I moved a few times. The schools I was attending were more or less similar to one another despite the fact that, as my dad got better the better jobs that were moving us around, we were living in somewhat increasingly better school districts. They were all rated somewhat well by their respective states, predominantly white, and governed by the concerns of upper-middle class school districts (i.e., flash over substance; the latest technology, new classroom equipment, impressive school productions and functions, etc.) By the time I was in fifth grade though, we had settled back into our hometown, and I was finally able to spend more than two years in a row at the same school even if most of the ones before had not been all that distinguishable from one another.

As I was reading “The Lesson” there was nothing that hit me to the core or something that really stood out to the point where I was in disbelief. Something that came close to it was probably the fact that Harper and Thanh left to a an island for the wedding of a friend when their baby from a surrogate could possibly come at any moment. This was a little surprising because it felt like they weren’t too excited about their baby that they are expecting even though they are paying for it, so it was surprising that they left. It is like paying for college, but not going to class. If I was in their shoes, I would not go anywhere, I just wouldn’t be able to do that, I would be too excited and anxious waiting for my son. Then the fact that the

I thought that the mother of Chante made this presentation very beneficial. She was unique and helpful because she was honest. I grew up not having much experience with disabilities as well. So, I could imagine how uneasy it must have felt to learn that your child has a disability. I really enjoyed how honest she was, she admitted that at first, she was very angry about it. She did not pretend that everything was okay as a lot of parents probably would have. I also was very interested in her transformation on her views of her daughter that she shared. I thought that it was intriguing how she thought that she would cover up Chante’s disability with a clean face, pretty clothes, and nice hair. But once she actually gave birth to Chante she realized that her priority was not Chante’s appearance. She was more concerned about making sure her child would live throughout the night. Lastly, I enjoyed the fact that she brought up the fact that she was in denial about Chante’s ability. It brought to my attention that as a future teacher, even though it may be easier for me to accept that some children will need alternative classrooms, it may not always be easy for the parent to accept this.

After being in school for 14 years I have learned a lot about the world around me, myself, and other people. One of the more fascinating things about education is how it can make you more aware of yourself and the world around you. When I think of the word “education” my first thoughts are about math and science, but after I consider everything I have gained from my education I am more apt to think of how my education has molded my character and shaped my outlook on daily experiences.

During the stages of my development, I did not always understand why my parents forced me to follow the laws that they had put in place. Like, why should I really cut the lawn? Why was school really so important? Why can not I put candies in my oat bowl?