Learning Letter

After completing this course I have to say that I do not think I was really prepared to take this class. It seems like most of the students in 493 are either in classrooms now, teaching, or have already completed their student teaching. I have never been in a real classroom. I have never written a lesson plan, and I have never given a lesson to students before. I think this class might be more geared toward students who are already in practicum situations.

            During the first half of the quarter when we discussed philosophy and read about theories for teachers; that was such a useful and amazing experience for me. I am so interested in the theories behind teaching. Reading about new and inventive ways to look at my job was really inspirational to me. I want to be the best teacher that I can be. I want to make the lives of my students happier and more productive. I want to see my students achieve higher goals, and live more fulfilling lives than the generation before. If my students can, in turn, help the generation after theirs to be even more successful and happy, then I have contributed to the betterment of my society.

            I have never had an education class where we discussed and explored philosophy like this. I feel like I learned a lot, not just about the pedagogies discussed in our curriculum, but I learned that there are so many studies, articles, theories, and pedagogical discussions out there for me to learn about! I was embarrassingly unaware of the mass of knowledge available on the subject of effective teaching.

            I found our book talks to be really helpful. I love adolescent literature, but I am not familiar with much of it. In fact, the genre of “teen novels” is so immense that I doubt if anyone is totally familiar with every option available. I was very excited to find a book that I didn’t think my peers would be familiar with so that I could share something new with them. I don’t think that all of our class members saw this assignment in the same light that I did, as some people shared classic and familiar texts, but those talks were really interesting and informative as well. I definitely learned a lot from hearing details about all of these texts and how they can be incorporated into curriculum.

            The mini lesson that we did on our required texts were also a great learning opportunity. I chose an author that I liked, but I had never read this particular book before so I really had fun with the assignment. Even though I do not have experience presenting a lesson, this was an excellent assignment for me to start gaining experience. I was really proud of my conceptualized lesson. I struggled immensely with writing my TPA lesson plan, but the experience really made me realize that I need to change how I am thinking about lesson planning. Writing the TPA format is like learning to speak a new language I am calling “administrative talk”. I need to know how to speak this language if I want to become a successful educator. As a teacher I need to ensure that every student in my class understands my lesson, similarly I must make sure that every other educator in my field can also understand my lesson.

            I felt that my mini-lesson went fairly well, and I learned a lot about teaching. I was so nervous that I rushed through activities that I had carefully times out during my prep time. I asked questions and then failed to wait for responses before I started to talk again. I made a lot of mistakes, and I saw a lot of ways in which I can become a stronger teacher.

            The unit plan was, by far, the hardest assignment that I have ever done. Creating a three week lesson plan was intense. I spent a lot of time researching the book that I wanted to focus my unit around. I read hundreds of lesson plans that other teachers have shared and I began to form ideas about how I would want to teach this text. In hindsight I think that this strategy was a bit ill conceived. When I developed my unit plan I only focused on the book that I wanted to use, but I never really thought about the bigger picture. If I were to do this assignment again I would start with unit objectives, how those big goals line up with common core standards, and once I had the big picture in mind I would work backwards to the daily lessons. Keeping those big unit objectives in mind would have clarified my lessons and focused my intentions.

            When thinking about this course as a whole I wish that we could have spent more time on theories and concepts in education. I am afraid that I will not get many opportunities in my education classes to look at these kinds of big ideas involving overall goals for education and implementation of purposeful teaching. I hope I am wrong, but on my list of required courses left, there is no philosophy class listed.

            This has honestly been one of the most useful classes that I have taken so far. Everything that we discussed in here and every assignment we completed applies a direct connection to what I will do every day of my career as an educator. There was no day, no lesson, and no discussion that I considered a waste of time.