Standard 8
The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways.
View all my artifacts for Standard 8
Reflection 2016:
The teacher understands and uses a diverse set of teaching strategies, in order to encourage students, to work on developing a deeper understanding of each lesson. Teachers will help formulate this deeper level of thinking and understanding by connecting and applying this to previous knowledge, in a meaningful way.
Communication, is an aspect of life that remains constant. Communication is not just verbal; it can be facial expressions, signs, body language. The way that you communicate with another person, to me is what reinforces understanding. When you are in constant communication with people, especially children and teenagers, you notice little things like eye rolling, crossed arms, and nodding your head. Personally, when I see signs like those, I know my students are not engaging with me. For example, (and as a personal limitation), when I was a senior in high school, each student was given their own personal iPad, and it was up to the classroom teacher to decide the best way to incorporate the iPad. I believe that technology now-a-day is one of the most diverse strategies that you can incorporate in a classroom. I have seen and been in the high-tech classrooms and I have realized that in the education you cannot run away from technology. Which is why being flexible is so important. Flexibility, has always been one of my strengths, if something does not work, (like a video clip), the best thing to do is adapt your lesson plan to that.
As a teacher, especially a first year teacher, I know that there will be so many periods of trial and error, until I get into the grove of things, based on the outcomes of each experience. Since I will get new students each year some strategies will work and others will not; it is my job to discover the most appropriate strategies, for my current students. Personally, this is a strength of mine, I love new opportunities. As a teacher I will treat each year as a new opportunity. A special education teacher really need to focus on making each lesson meaningful for my children, most of my students will already be struggling and be behind, and I cannot afford to overlook that, especially in an IEP meeting. In these case conferences, I along with other teachers, and the student’s parents, will set benchmark goals. These goals will be how I instruct my classroom; I will continuously monitor my student’s progress of academics and how well they are adjusting to my instructions.