Identity Chart
TPE 9: Instructional Planning
What Kind of Learner Am I?
TPE 8: Learning About Your Students, TPE 11: Social Environment, TPE 15: Social Justice & Equity
I will always be similar to my students because I have gone through school just as they currently are. I am more so like them this year because I myself am a student. I think one of the greatest attractions to being a teacher is that you are essentially a lifelong student. As long as I am a teacher, I will be more like my students than not. Though I have my preferences to how I learn certain subject material, I am a type of learner that can grasp concepts through visual, direct instruction, electronically and pretty much most ways. This is beneficial because if I have a student that needs a concept explained differently, I will have the ability to provide them with multiple ways to attack a problem. The amount of information we can obtain through the internet these days is remarkable. I recently discovered Kahn.com while studying for my CSETs and realized what a life changer it can be for students. I believe having support of the internet for videos and explanations to various kinds of subjects will be easy for me because I can watch teachers write on a board and describe a problem, listen to a recording of how to go about a problem or even just see the step by step instructions on how to do, say, long division. The support the internet provides for extending our learner is limitless. I am a very well rounded learner and can essentially learn in many different ways and settings so I don't believe many support strategies will be a challenge to me. My brain is also at the youngest of my teaching career, so I am still unaware of how many support strategies are really out there. I'm sure there are some that I will have to be more thoughtful about, but I just don't know they exist yet. I believe the best way to avoid falling into a habit of using strategies that reflect my learning profile and not my students would be to take assessments on a very regular basis. I know that everyone learns differently, and I also know that high school students are not always known to share that they are not understanding a concept. But through various assessments I should be able to diagnose the percentage of kids who are grasping a concept from my way and who is not. I also think working with a cooperating teacher will be an excellent way to learn new ways to teach various concepts. My cooperating teacher has already started to share with me the new things she has implemented into her instruction, what has worked and what showed that her original approach was much more successful. My cooperating teacher and I have different learning profiles so we should be able to work off one another extremely well. To make sure I am meeting my student's learning needs and not mine would be again, working with my cooperating teacher. She has 20 years of experience and clearly knows what she is doing. I know what I need to do to receive my credential and I believe that if I soak up what I am taught through these next 9 months, I will know exactly how to make sure my students are meeting their learning needs. To be able to successfully complete this program, I would have to be meeting the students' needs. I am into so many different things (i.e. sports, TV shows, books, outdoors activities) and I believe I can relate math in any of these subjects. Learning doesn't have to be confined to a classroom and sometimes students have a hard time learning stuck in a classroom. There are ways to bring math outside the classroom and other subjects into the classroom and have them all relevant. This will be something I perfect as I go, but always creating a different way to look at something (aka something that the students care about) can only benefit the students and their learning. You will never hear me say that no one ever uses math after school!
Who I Am.
TPE 8: Learning About Your Students, TPE 11: Social Environment, TPE 15: Social Justice & Equity
Unlike Thomas Hoerr, I always worked hard and excelled in school, at least high school. College is where most students find themselves and excel in school, and this is where I, there girl who did everything right, started struggling. Because of my success in K-12 and my true struggle in college, I think all students can benefit from my past. Now, and for the first time, I finally appreciate that I did struggle in college because it will only benefit me and my students in my career as an educator. In order to meet all the needs of my students, I need to get to know them, I need to be sensitive to their needs, I need to remember my school history. I believe with Thomas that "our philosophy and behaviors are framed by our histories" and I believe my history will be productive in addressing my students' needs.
Hoerr, Thomas, R. (2011). Principal Connection/Who Are You? Educational Leadership 68(6), 88-90. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar11/vol68/num06/Who-Were-You¢.aspx
Hoerr, Thomas, R. (2011). Principal Connection/Who Are You? Educational Leadership 68(6), 88-90. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar11/vol68/num06/Who-Were-You¢.aspx