I believe teaching is much more than passing standardized tests and learning the curriculum. I find it inspiring and enjoy motivating students to fulfill their dreams. Teaching is an opportunity to make an impact on today’s world and the future. I believe students should be taught by differentiated instruction so that each child no matter the learning style or readiness level will learn and move forward in their educational career. Teaching is democratic, giving students choices and empowering them.
The classroom should have a sense of community with the teacher fostering relationships with the students. The classroom community should be student centered allowing for interdependent collaborative learning. The teacher should teach so that the students are actively engaged in their learning process for the majority of the class with very little lecture time. By teaching in this manner assessment will need to be varied, not only using traditional but also using performance and observation tools of assessment. The teacher should provide positive constructive feedback throughout assessments for students to move forward instead of making the same errors continually.
I am a social constructivist and believe students should be actively engaged in their learning process at least 90% of the time. I think that students should also learn in an interdependent collaborative manner with assessment being varied from traditional methods. Teachers must meet each child’s zone of proximal development and can only do this by varying instruction and creating an actively involved learning/social environment. All standard based curriculum that is taught should be related to real life experiences and situations. Students need to understand why they are being taught this information and how they can use it outside the classroom. If they are not taught this they feel as though they have no need to learn the material because it will be useless to them in the “real world.” Students’ instruction should be varied to meet all students learning styles and needs, so that each child will learn.
I believe that classroom management should be handled by a balanced approach with some behaviorist and some humanistic viewpoints. I think this will assist you greatly in making a safe and positive classroom community. There should be rules, procedures, and consequences posted clearly in the classroom and rehearsed continually throughout the year to ensure routine. If the students know what to do in most situations there will be no confusion nor behavior problems. Behavior problems occur when students are confused and do not know what to do. Positive and negative consequences should also be offered for students who choose to do the right thing and for students who choose not to. This method will reinforce those wanted and unwanted behaviors. Discipline and behavior management are the most important things in the classroom, without them you will never achieve anything in the teaching/learning process.
Teachers are coaches, facilitators and role models. They coach children through the schooling process and their lives, they facilitate instruction in a variety of ways to meet every student’s needs, and they are role models by being educated professionals who are inspiring today’s world over and over again. Teachers touch and change student’s lives daily and without them our world would not be where it is today.
