Collaboration with other staff members
I have grown and learned a great deal through the collaboration with other staff members at Thompson K-8 International. At the bi-weekly professional development sessions I have been able to not only learn about new teaching strategies, but have been given the opportunity to collaborate with other staff members to improve our teaching through discussions and demonstrations of new strategies. When collaborating with other staff members, I am able to use past experiences to think about how to solve problems in the classroom as well as learning from other staff members' experiences of their classroom. The following artifact is a professional development meeting that was aimed to improve our instruction by having us learn and think about the different learning styles that we have as life long learners as well as the different learning styles of our students. The learning styles that were presented included, kinesthetic, visual, oratory, and word based learning. As a staff we grouped ourselves into our best learning style and discussed the learning styles and how we can incorporate strategies to meet this learning style in our classrooms. Each group presented the ideas behind their learning styles through a presentation that utilized a strategy that could be used in the classroom to cater to the specific type of learning. These opportunities to collaborate with other staff members has allowed me to grow as a educator by providing me with the opportunity to gain access to different experiences and information that can be beneficial to my classroom.
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Utilizing Professional Development in the Classroom
The artifact demonstrates a teaching strategy that was shared through bi-weekly professional development at Thompson K-8 International Academy. The teaching strategy presented at the meeting was on how to improve student reading skills and student reading comprehension. The presenter called for meeting the students at their reading level in order to help students understand and comprehend the content they are learning about it through reading. The research presented showed that if a student is not met at their reading level then they will struggle comprehending the information they are trying to read, which will hinder their learning. I learned that in order to help my struggling readers, I needed to provide leveled reading material to the students and allow students time to practice their reading through sustained silent reading. I also learned that the strategy of sustained silent reading involved more than having a student sit and read silently at their reading grade level, but had to engage the student through discussions about the readings. I was able to immediately able to utilize this strategy that week in my classroom right after the professional development meeting. I provided students with a 5th grade textbook that covered the topic we were studying and had students do sustained silent reading. I was able to meet some of my struggling readers with a lower reading level book to help them understand the content. I also had students take notes to help them comprehend the content. I saw an increase in participation from students who generally have a hard time reading their normal 8th grade textbook as well as high quiz scores over the section that was covered after utilizing the strategy of sustained silent reading and using leveled reading texts.
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Case Study
I created a case study of a hard to reach student in response to a project for my Michigan State University coursework. This project was highly beneficial to improving my teaching and learning more about the teaching profession. Through this case study of a student who I found difficult to connect with, I discovered that teachers are human and have their own convictions about their students and their own teaching. This case study has proven to me that teacher-student relationships are highly important to the teaching profession. It is important for a teacher to be able to connect and share an understanding with each student individually on a positive level. The student I worked with was cold and distant to me in the beginning of the year. Through my collegiate research on how to engage students and my case study and sharing ideas with other teaching interns, I was able to find a way to connect with the student and create a more positive and closer relationship. I discovered that teaching is more than just scaffolding students to higher level thinking and teaching content, it is also about having conversations with students that aren’t school related. It is about learning about student interests and discussing with students about their goals in life. One of the most important things I learned to establishing a positive relationship with students was showing to the student that as a teacher, I am human, have goals, and interests just like them.
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Improving Teaching Through Reading and Research
The use of William Ayers’s “To Teach the journey, in comics” provided me with a fresh and unique way of viewing learning, the classroom, testing, building community, and schools. This graphic novel on teaching provided me with a reading in which to gain a new and different perspective. In the novel, Ayers makes many interesting arguments such as how to view a student who may appear to have A.D.D. and is given medication to control the student. My personal perspective and experience tells me that the student has a disorder and needs the medication to help them concentrate, but Ayers provided me with a fresh perspective stating that perhaps the student is just a different type of learner and expresses his learning and emotions differently. Ayers demonstrates a variety of different ways of viewing students and makes the argument that as teachers, we must cater and meet our students needs rather than making students fit the needs “school” and standardization. This novel has provided me with a resource to view school differently, reevaluate my teaching experiences, and reflect on the solutions and strategies that I have been using in my teaching. Although, I disagree with Ayers on some issues it has allowed me to compare his perspectives and research to my experiences and to the realities of school. Ayers has allowed me to not be afraid of changing my teaching style and views about students and schools since a problem may lie in how I perceive the situation rather than the situation itself.