Sunday, August 31, 2008
Melanie's Semester Goals
I have established many goals that I hope to complete from this course. My principle goal is to better identify with myself as a teacher. I hope that gaining more experience with students through field will help me better understand learners and how they respond to my teaching strategies and me. I’ll consider the quality of their responses and modify my approach as needed. I’d also like to develop an idea of the environment of my future classroom, my personal teaching theories, what I value as a teacher, and what I value for the well being of my future students. Again, I hope to achieve a great part of this by analyzing the quality of the time I spend with students in field and by considering the comments that I hear from my peers, CT, and professor. I believe I can slowly discover my personal teaching theories through discussions in class and by hearing other students’ teaching experiences as well. However, I don’t want to solely rely on students’ and my peers’ opinions to discover my strengths and weaknesses. I hope to develop a strong method of self-assessment to analyze myself and really discover what I value in a teacher and learner. Another goal that I have is furthering my experience with students that have English as a second language. I am very interested in bilingual schools, particularly those that deal with the Spanish language, and I would like to improve my interaction with these students. I want develop a teaching approach that targets these students so I can discover how to meet their needs. I aspire to be a teacher in a bilingual school, so it is crucial that I understand how to teach, inspire, and motivate these students. Lastly, I hope to learn more about discipline and how to properly utilize it in the classroom. One of my major weaknesses not knowing how to be an authoritative figure. I have always been afraid and hesitant to discipline children, but I realize that it is important that I learn how to discipline in an appropriate and efficient manner. Not only would this create a better learning environment for my students, but it would also help me complete my responsibilities as a teacher. As a future teacher, I need to have a stronger presence in the classroom, and I want students to take me seriously. I hope to gain ideas on how to do so from this class, my peers, and my CT. I’ve developed these specific goals because I feel that these skills are what I lack in the most. I hope to attain all of these goals so I can transcend these lessons into my future teaching career.
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3 comments:
Melanie, I think that your interest in second language learners is really wonderful. Teaching in a bilingual school is a very admirable aspiration and I feel that you have developed your other goals around that, which will work to your advantage. Is there some particular person or event that sparked this interest? I also wanted to note that it is a good thing that you are already able to recognize a few faults in your teaching style, because they are easier to address if you already know they exist. You can also ask questions specific to that issue in class or in field. None of us have enough experience at this point to feel completely confident in how we teach or plan to teach, and admitting it helps you become a better teacher in my opinion.
I'm glad that you bring up self-assessment, as I agree that this is an important skill. Do you have any ideas of how to start doing this yet? It sounds like you're already applying some reflection and analysis of your own teaching if you realize that you need to work on being more authoritative. What questions can we as teachers ask ourselves to better assess our teaching methods and theories of learning?
I am glad you are able to identify some of your weaknesses. You are obviously beginning to self-assess. It is important to have a presense in the classroom (I feel I have it in an elementary school classroom, but am working on it with college students). With experience, I think you will learn how to have this presense.
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