Standard IV Reflection
ELEMENT A: Teachers link professional growth to their professional goals.
Throughout my time in education, my goals have shifted and changed day after day. One thing that's for certain is that I always struggled with putting myself into conversations with students because I prefer it when they have time to focus on their work, but I understand that it can help with student understanding and growth when the teacher interacts with them. Another one was working on keeping my head on a swivel in order to keep a balance with helping students and not getting sucked into a void.
In terms of how this aligns with my professional goals of creating a classroom community, I want to ensure that students are comfortable with talking in the classroom and have every opportunity for help and to learn. This way they're more open to talking about personal art work, asking for feedback, and giving feedback where applicable.
In these past several weeks, I have gotten better at taking time to sit down with students and talk about things they are working through. In many cases there have been students asking about how to go about designing something or where to start. It's these instances that I want to make sure students are okay with discussing because they've often already tried something, so feedback could hinder or help them depending on the delivery. In many cases, I have been able to assist in either breaking down the steps for "how do I make a tree?" or "how could I show it in this way?" style questions so that the student is able to understand. Afterwards, they would continue working and often ask me to check their progress again to see if they're still on track or what else they may need. Another thing that I'm still working towards in keeping my head on a swivel so that students are able to get the help they need. I have gotten better about it, but there are often times where questions go away or they figure things out themselves. I want to make sure that the students know they have the opportunity and can definitely keep asking me questions to further their learning. That is why I have made sure to work on those two aspects so that students feel more comfortable talking in the class along with knowing they can get help when they ask for it.
In terms of how this aligns with my professional goals of creating a classroom community, I want to ensure that students are comfortable with talking in the classroom and have every opportunity for help and to learn. This way they're more open to talking about personal art work, asking for feedback, and giving feedback where applicable.
In these past several weeks, I have gotten better at taking time to sit down with students and talk about things they are working through. In many cases there have been students asking about how to go about designing something or where to start. It's these instances that I want to make sure students are okay with discussing because they've often already tried something, so feedback could hinder or help them depending on the delivery. In many cases, I have been able to assist in either breaking down the steps for "how do I make a tree?" or "how could I show it in this way?" style questions so that the student is able to understand. Afterwards, they would continue working and often ask me to check their progress again to see if they're still on track or what else they may need. Another thing that I'm still working towards in keeping my head on a swivel so that students are able to get the help they need. I have gotten better about it, but there are often times where questions go away or they figure things out themselves. I want to make sure that the students know they have the opportunity and can definitely keep asking me questions to further their learning. That is why I have made sure to work on those two aspects so that students feel more comfortable talking in the class along with knowing they can get help when they ask for it.
ELEMENT B: Teachers are able to respond to a complex, dynamic environment.
By far, the most complex and dynamic environment I have been in has been the K-5 art classroom. Throughout the past eight weeks of being there, I have adapted to dealing with a turntable of classes where one class leaves and another is right behind it. In this time, I made sure to keep things on a constant rotation where I was getting students started, helping them with questions, and getting the things ready for the next class. At first, I was able to observe how my mentor teacher handled the situations by balancing things out and was able to do similar things.
One thing for sure is that organization in the classroom is absolutely key when it comes to making sure a classroom with so much traffic is running optimally. It wasn't too difficult to get into the swing of things with how the classes came and went, but it required precise management of time so that when students needed to clean up they were ready to go when class ended. I used one attention getter in particular during these times, and to give instructions, where I would call out "Show me your 'Mona Lisa's' in 3...2...1!" and wait for them. They would all get to a stopping point and pause to wait for the instructions with a few that would talk on the side a bit. This was a quick and efficient way that was used frequently to ensure I could get their attention and then proceed with what needed to be said or to make a general announcement before they got back to work.
One thing for sure is that organization in the classroom is absolutely key when it comes to making sure a classroom with so much traffic is running optimally. It wasn't too difficult to get into the swing of things with how the classes came and went, but it required precise management of time so that when students needed to clean up they were ready to go when class ended. I used one attention getter in particular during these times, and to give instructions, where I would call out "Show me your 'Mona Lisa's' in 3...2...1!" and wait for them. They would all get to a stopping point and pause to wait for the instructions with a few that would talk on the side a bit. This was a quick and efficient way that was used frequently to ensure I could get their attention and then proceed with what needed to be said or to make a general announcement before they got back to work.