My growth as a teacher has brought me from an intellectual understanding, combined with a few classroom management strategies, to being a more experienced practitioner who can help a group of students learn. I better understand different teaching styles, student needs, lesson planning, and staff dynamics.
I am trying to grow in intellectual courage as I apply what I’ve learned intellectually in a practical way. I try to be humble when there is feedback and apply improvements to future efforts. I recently got feedback from my host teacher that I could improve by moving around the class and being more aware of students during the lesson. This helped me improve my teaching by checking in to ensure all students get the same level of attention.
Professional Development and Subject Matter
A professional development activity that helped deepen my knowledge of content matter is the podcast “Short Wave”. Short Wave gives me a 15-minute daily science lesson that helps me understand science content (Short Wave Radio, 2024). I’ve learned some about a variety of subjects, including human biology subjects, environmental topics, and space topics. By listening to these subjects, I get lesson ideas and can answer difficult “how come” questions the students pose.
Development and Pedagogy
I have been listening to the “The Cult of Pedagogy” podcast, which has given me insights into how to be a better teacher and the culture of education. Episode 219: Eight Ed Tech Tools talks about several AI tools. One tool is @magicschool.ai, which can help create emails, plan or assess, and even create a song to help learn content. (Pod, 2024)
Collaboration
As a Third-Grade cohort, we collaborate every 1 – 2 months to determine placement for small groups. We use test scores to determine placement for minor math and reading groups. The small groups allow us to focus on specific student needs and plan for areas that need strengthening.
Collaboration on student data affects future planning. I’ve learned that I only need to reach a majority of the students in the class on any given topic, and there is other time for more focused instruction.
The collaboration helped me grow as an educator because I was able to create custom plans to meet the needs of select students. Other third-grade teachers supported my students.
Professional Learning Organization
The Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) has helped me identify my teaching strengths and areas for improvement. I’ve used the self-evaluation tool to identify areas that need more training. The PESB also provides standards and competencies that are expected of educators. Specifically, I learned that I can work on Standard 3: Learning Environments. (Professional Educator Standards Board, 2024)
Into the Future
I will develop at least two strategies for cooperative student learning and self-directed learning. To accomplish this goal, I will interview other teachers about goal setting and group work and research cooperative groups and goals.
