Reflection #10
Question 1: Focus on “educating the whole child”. What does this look like in your classroom and on your site? Consider opportunities to foster and reinforce Social Emotional Learning, inclusive and diverse learning environments, and vehicles for student advocacy.
When I focus on “educating the whole child” I start on day one of school with two key elements. Firstly, getting to know my students and developing relationships with them on an individual level. Secondly, create an EXTREMELY POSITIVE environment. I am my students biggest cheerleader from the second I meet them. Students are greeted at the door with a smile, compliment and they can choose between Air hi-5, Air fist bump, wave or crazy hand shake. I play music and give them time to talk about whatever they want for a few minutes almost daily. In short, I try to make them enjoy being in my classroom. Step 2, when I develop lessons, I use the things I learn about them in as many ways as possible in those lessons. I’m trying to connect them to the material as much as possible. I also have assignments in the year the individually connect students to the material we cover in class. I teach 7th grade world history. One of our major themes is Cultural Legacy. Early assignments focus on students telling me about their own culture and things they like about it. Hopefully, if I’m doing all of this with my students they are going to engage in what we do in class. Nothing happens without that. We also have a social-emotional component baked into our program where we have 28 weekly lessons that we do on Wednesdays. The unts in that program are: Mind Sets and Goals, Recognizing Bullying and Harassment, Thoughts and Emotions and Decisions, and Managing Relationships and Social Conflicts. I also will cover any holidays or inspirational figures as I can manage to squeeze in. We cover a different person every day in Black and Women’s history months. Every kid is intellectually stimulated by something different. I love seeing a student's light flip on and then they come back and tell me about the rabbit hole. I’m just constantly surprised and happy about which rabbit holes different students choose.
Question 2: Reflect on your overall experience with this course. What changes will you make as a result of the work that you have done?
I will continue to do the crazy stuff I already do and get better. I try to make my class feel like the fun class, and before they know it they are going to learn something new that makes them like learning about it. To really make that work though, I have to have super engaging lessons. That is where my real work is going lately. Focusing on trying to have kids like engaging and doing the work.
Reflection #9
What does it mean to be “digitally literate”? How does Digital Citizenship contribute to digital literacy, and how do they support college/career readiness?
According to The American Library Association, “Digital literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.” When I hear the term digitally literate as an educator, I think about what it means for me to be digitally literate. In that context, I think it means that I understand how technology can be used to help my students. That is quite a broad definition that can include so many different things. Like most probably do, I first think of proficiency. I need to know which apps and resources will help my students learn our content the best. When asked to further reflect upon the question: How does Digital Citizenship contribute to digital literacy, and how do they support college/career readiness? I break that into 2 steps. Firstly how does Digital Citizenship contribute to digital literacy? To answer this question I must decide what Digital Citizenship involves. To me that means being a responsible, productive person operating with integrity and a desire to continue evolving one’s technical skills as a means to support their education. To then answer the second part of the question: how do they support college/career readiness? My response to that is if one is a “good digital citizen” they will be striving to continually improve their digital literacy aka skill and resource utilization. They will learn more faster, communicate better, showcase their ideas better. In short they will be more successful in a setting that has any digital component, be it educational or career.
Reflection #5
Students in the modern classroom have several barriers that make college readiness difficult. The days of the “nuclear family” are gone. Many students have only one parent at home and often those parents are very busy working or have major life issues of their own that make their parenting limited. Students also suffer from all different sorts of trauma. Also, many students have a developmental delay. Often students will have more than one of these issues or all of them and more. So, many of them are just trying to survive on a day to daybasis through the lens of a 12 or 13 year old child.
Fortunately I work at a school that does take many of these things into consideration. We have a highly forward thinking administration team who definitely has a student first mindset. It’s a requirement that all teachers and at least one administrator are in all IEPs, 504s, and SSTs to support our students. Our district has a strong college and career readiness program that starts in 6th grade if not earlier. Students are registered on the California Colleges.org website which gets them interactive about college and career and even assists college matching, applications and scholarships. In short I think my site and district take these issues very seriously and are actively trying to the best we can to serve our students and their families on this front.
I believe that I already take these things into consideration when planning my course. I have 21% of my students on an IEP and another 10% on 504s. On top of that almost every student has some type of trauma, so I try to take those things into consideration. Mostly by offering as much UDL and choice as possible. I also just “bake in” most many Sped accommodations for all students, but do it in a way that supports the learning. For example, many of my students have the accommodation “text to speech” So I read every class assessment to all my students and review the questions as we go. I will even give them page numbers to find the answers. Some may say that’s too generous. My attitude is they still have to open the book and find the answer and they will learn the material that was important enough to be on an assessment.
I know that I need to continue to grow as a teacher and I have a long way to go. The best way I can prepare to help my students thrive as global citizens is to keep growing myself as a teacher. Continue with professional development and be a truly lifelong learner and pass that on to my students. I can always be a set of open ears for them and treat them like people. Even though their children, they want to be taken seriously and heard. I can also continue to be interested in their interests and what they are about.
Fortunately I work at a school that does take many of these things into consideration. We have a highly forward thinking administration team who definitely has a student first mindset. It’s a requirement that all teachers and at least one administrator are in all IEPs, 504s, and SSTs to support our students. Our district has a strong college and career readiness program that starts in 6th grade if not earlier. Students are registered on the California Colleges.org website which gets them interactive about college and career and even assists college matching, applications and scholarships. In short I think my site and district take these issues very seriously and are actively trying to the best we can to serve our students and their families on this front.
I believe that I already take these things into consideration when planning my course. I have 21% of my students on an IEP and another 10% on 504s. On top of that almost every student has some type of trauma, so I try to take those things into consideration. Mostly by offering as much UDL and choice as possible. I also just “bake in” most many Sped accommodations for all students, but do it in a way that supports the learning. For example, many of my students have the accommodation “text to speech” So I read every class assessment to all my students and review the questions as we go. I will even give them page numbers to find the answers. Some may say that’s too generous. My attitude is they still have to open the book and find the answer and they will learn the material that was important enough to be on an assessment.
I know that I need to continue to grow as a teacher and I have a long way to go. The best way I can prepare to help my students thrive as global citizens is to keep growing myself as a teacher. Continue with professional development and be a truly lifelong learner and pass that on to my students. I can always be a set of open ears for them and treat them like people. Even though their children, they want to be taken seriously and heard. I can also continue to be interested in their interests and what they are about.
Reflection #4
TOD/Reflection: How do my content standards, CC anchor standards for literacy work together in tandem to support college & career readiness and CTE standards? Looking ahead…How will this help students to thrive as citizens in an interconnected world and a global society?
The CC anchor standards serve as a compass for me on the “what” I need to teach my students. Those standards serve as my objectives for the information I will communicate. I will utilize strategies and methodologies that support college and career readiness in the way that I get my students to those learning goals. For instance, students will work in groups (collaboration), or work with a new app (technology) to present their information. As a middle school Social Science teacher, CTE feels a bit outside of my scope. However upon reflection, there are skills that support CTE in my lessons. CTE definitely requires an understanding of cause and effect which is a major part of what we impart to our students in Social Science.
The CC anchor standards serve as a compass for me on the “what” I need to teach my students. Those standards serve as my objectives for the information I will communicate. I will utilize strategies and methodologies that support college and career readiness in the way that I get my students to those learning goals. For instance, students will work in groups (collaboration), or work with a new app (technology) to present their information. As a middle school Social Science teacher, CTE feels a bit outside of my scope. However upon reflection, there are skills that support CTE in my lessons. CTE definitely requires an understanding of cause and effect which is a major part of what we impart to our students in Social Science.
Reflection #3
How will this analysis and discussion of the 21st Century Skills impact your intentional lesson planning and classroom instruction?
The conversation and analysis we did tonight in class helped me to crystallize some things we have learned over the last couple years at TCSJ. We have covered 21st Century Skills in several classes. Tonight’s learning helped me remember that 21st Century skills are not just technology. I was reminded of the importance of teaching students about life skills. The best technical thing I can help my students learn is how to learn. I feel like there is more power in teaching students how to relate with other people and bring out the most from their personal talents. Another aspect that tonight’s learnings makes me consider. That is: what’s the next step? By that I mean, I’m on board with teaching 21st Century Skills and am always working on improving communicating that to my students. But I’m only one of six teacher’s for each of my students. How do I collaborate with (a 21st century skill) with other teachers and school staff to maximize this experience for our students? My school has a pretty good PLC program in spirit, which is currently meant to be the incubator for this type of collaboration. However, we don’t devote enough time, resources and follow up. I do believe that we are heading in the right direction and will get better and better as educators in this country. |
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