Week #11 Reflection

There is quite a bit of overlap between ID&T professionals and school teachers in terms of the competencies that each profession requires. In looking at table 27.3 on page 275 in Reiser and Dempsey, the competencies listed are for the most part integral to ID&T and teaching. All of us as educators need to constantly reflect on our strategies and objectives to design the best lessons we can for our “clients”, the students. I feel that sometimes educators get to comfortable with what and how they teach a certain subject that they feel that what worked for one year is good enough. Why fix what ain’t broken? That is a dangerous thought process to have. Every year is a new year. Every group of students is a new groups with different needs and personalities. What works for one group, may not work for the next. We need to constantly be cognizant of what we teach and how we teach it. Which leads me to reflect on my weaknesses as an educator. Looking at table 27.3 under the Instructor heading, I find myself drawn to certain competencies that I need to improve on. I really have found that in teaching 6th grade social studies for 7 years that I fell into the category that I mentioned above. I was complacent and bragged about how I could go into a classroom and not have a set plan and pull it off because I knew the material so well...guess who teaches a new grade level this year, with material that I am not as familiar with? This girl. One area of weakness, especially this year is my lack of preplanning. The 8th grade curriculum is unchartered territory for me and I need to make sure that I am on top of the content and pedagogy. Along with that I need to improve my organizational skills and make sure that I am best utilizing my time in and out of the classroom. I also need to improve on the clarification and feedback I give to my students. It kind of goes hand in hand with organization for me. I need to get the work that I need to grade to students in a more timely and efficient manner. I also need to make sure that I am going over the work with students to help correct mistakes and clarify answers. This is an extremely beneficial step in teaching and one that is hit or miss for me at times. One area that I am currently working on improving is that of assessing learning and performance. I have begun to use data from tests that are objective based. Each test that I give is set up to represent the goals we are required to teach by objective. From there students are asked to master the content with an A, or a B otherwise they must retake until it is mastered. I then take the students correct answers on a test and input that data into a data tracker. I use the data to remediate or enrich my instruction as needed. It is still a work in progress, but I see the results of my teaching and it allows me to reflect on what I need to do better every time!