Teaching is important to me because it is my strength as a human being and it helps me fulfill my responsibilities that I feel I have to help human beings on the planet.  It has also helped me to find my place in society, which was something that I worried about for a long time.  Teaching has allowed me to find a niche that I can develop myself for a lifetime.  Also, working with students all day is very rewarding to me and I hope that I touch their lives as much as they do mine. 

 

I believe patience and the ability to resolve conflicts well are the most important attributes needed to be an outstanding teacher.  There are so many unforeseen challenges in each school day, that teachers need the ability to think their way into new solutions in order to accommodate new behavioral problems and existing learning gaps.  The ability to maintain a cheerful and positive attitude during the school day is also crucial so that students will keep wanting to attend.

 

My beliefs on the teaching process are that educators must have a secure and in depth understanding of the content that they teach.  With that knowledge, teachers should be able to shape it into very specific objectives and learning targets that match the current level of students they are teaching and be able to accelerate their knowledge of that target or objective (Sturmer, 2013).  An effective teacher trying to achieve this should possess excellent organizational skills so that they may be able to effectively prioritize what skills need to be taught when and in what order to achieve successful scaffolding of knowledge.  With this prioritization, educators must also be able to recognize gaps in student knowledge along the way and be able to remediate or differentiate within those gaps like a surgeon would fix an ill patient.  Lastly, but certainly, not least in the matter of importance, educators must excel at reflection and applying constructive feedback to their teaching methods every time they step in the classroom.

 

As far as my beliefs on the learning process are concerned, I think the most important step for an educator to consider when teaching is how exactly they are going to activate their students prior knowledge.  Once they have identified the level of prior knowledge of their students, it is essential to synthesize that information and design instructional practices around the new level of understanding they are trying to evoke from their students (National Research Council, 2001).  All this needs to be accomplished of course through inducing student motivation to learn more challenging content.  This applies to the comprehension of new material as well as the retention of it (Singley & Anderson, 1989).  To elicit the retention, it is important for the educator to make sure new skills and knowledge are revisited and practiced- and this may need to occur through applying previously acquired mastery to new real world scenarios and problems to solve or analyze.  The desired outcome of all of these learner processes of course is for the students to become self-directed learners, that is to say that they take the acquired skills that they already possess and in turn utilize it to teach themselves the knowledge in skills that inspires them and make them successful (Bandura, 1989). 

 

In today’s test-focused culture, I often feel conflicted in the desired outcome that I have for my students.  I want to help provide them with the skills that will help them with the skills they need in everyday life to be able to communicate to others effectively enough to sole any problems they come across.  I believe that they also need to know that they will fail at things, but failing can also be really helpful in learning and also a diversion into other areas that may work out better for them. 

 

As for my teaching methods, I am a big believer in learning by doing.  Learning should be very experiential.  After being taught a concept, students should be able to explore it with their own cognitive abilities.  There is much research in these approaches, otherwise I would probably be forced into different practices.  However, I believe in this way, students develop problem solving skills that they will be able to carry into many academic arenas.  I have differentiated lesson plans for several ability groups, as a non-categorical Special Day Class teacher.  I do these differentiated lesson plans for word study, writing, reading, math and science.  I adjust my instruction based on formative and summative assessment data.  I constantly monitor, chart and share the growth with students.  Collaborative partnerships is a specific method that I employ in order for learners to build off of each other to gain mastery of learning targets (Rutherford, 2004).  Collaborative partners work together frequently to practice flashcards, practice specific skills in workbooks, fill out historical timelines, match ideas with pictures and assist each other in finding information on open book assessments.  Many times however, it is necessary to use a more teacher centered approach such as direct instruction.  I employ this method mostly when I am modeling a new skill such as how to enter in to a debate with the class, how to research a person or event, or how to construct a poster that demonstrates a learning target (Baker, Santoro, Biancarrosa, Baker, & Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2015).  When I need for students to get more creative in their learning, such as in problem solving, I often look for more inquiry-based methods where students can experiment and explore a learning target (i.e. forces and motion) through their own observations of trial and error (Holyoak, 1984). 

 

The assessment strategies that I think work best are the ones where students can make connections between sets of things, can arrange something in sort of progression or sequence, or where they have to prove that their answer is right (Wiggins, 1989).  Quite often, these types of assessments are not typical multiple choice-type tests, but should be hands-on with real object-type tests where students can think on a different plane of cognition while they assess.  Without proper psychometrics, there is no way to know if anything has been learned.  Having assessments that assess knowledge and understanding in multiple ways (ie. Visual, physical, verbal and written modes) can allow for a student to fully explore, express, and test their level of cognition of a certain principal, fact or idea (Nelson, 1992).  For example, if a student cannot demonstrate their hypothesis that it gravity pulls all the planets in the solar system in a specific orbit at different rates using written language, the student could produce a drawing showing symbols that they chose to represent an invisible force holding orbits intact.  I believe that to not allow for other types of expression of knowledge shuts down any attempts of differentiation and the claim any educator could make about beliefs in teaching the whole child. 

 

Some characteristics of a positive relationship with students, families and colleagues are lots of effective communication, which may include several reminders of expectations or upcoming events.  If these same people do not feel that you are approachable or are not in the loop about what is going on in the classroom, they are less likely to be supportive of school activities, less likely to volunteer and most importantly less likely to have specific knowledge of what is best concerning the students that you are working with.

 

Concerning student relationships, it is important right from the start for teachers to make any kind of connections they can with the students they serve.  Students need to see how an instructor can relate factual information to them and also show that their lives and academic success are important to them.  Building connections with students could be as simple as sharing what occurred over the weekend, or common places they like to visit or discussing similar stories of what occurred when the instructor was their age.  Having shared interest with students with things like sports, movies, music, etc. has created a bond with my students, and has shown them that I can relate to them.  Thus, the students are in a better position to take constructive criticism whenever necessary. 

​

I love being a SpEducator, sharing knowledge and shaping students into bright, respectable productive members of society.  I plan to continue positively influencing students throughout the rest of my working years.  Within the next ten years, I plan to further my education and become a Speech Pathologist to assist students with language-based learning disabilities, as I believe speech is an integral part of education.  If I can treat language-based learning disabilities in a student's early years of education by helping students understand complex sentences and vocabulary, comprehending written and oral information and compiling thoughts for speaking and writing, I can help students to continue to learn with their peers.  

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

References

 

Baker, D., Santoro, L. Biancarrosa, G., Baker, S., & Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. (2015).  Effects of Quality of Instruction on Student Vocabulary and Comprehension during Read Alouds.  Society For Reseach On Educational Effectiveness.

 

Bandura, A. (1989).  Self-regulation of motivation and action through internal standards and goal systems.  In L.A. Pervin (Ed.), Goal concepts in personality and social psychology (pp. 19-85).  Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

 

Holyoak, K. (1984). Analogiccal Thinking and Human Intelligence.  In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.), Advances in the Psychology of Human Intelligence, Vol. 2 (pp.199-230).  Hillsdale, J: Erlbaum.  

 

National Research Council (2001).  Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment.  Washington, DC: National Academy Press. 

 

Nelson, T. (1992).  Metacognition.  Bston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

 

Rutherford, S. (2004).  Collaborative Learning: Theory, Strategies, and Educational Benefits [e-book].  New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.  Available from: eBook Collection (EBCSOhost), Ipswich, MA.  Accessed June 04, 2018. 

 

Singley, M., & Anderson, J. (1989). The Transfer of Cognitive Skill.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

 

Sturmer, K., Konings, K., & Seidel, T. (2013).  Declarative Knowledge and Professional Vision in Teacher Education: Effect of Courses in Teaching and Learning.  The British Journal of Educational Psychology, 83 (Pt. 3), 467- 483. Doi:10.1111/j.2044-8279.2012.02075.x

 

Wiggins, G. (1998).  Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance, Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.