Reflections on My Learning Experiences
Describe how your favorite teacher influenced your teaching.
My favorite teacher influenced my teaching by helping me realize everything that we set out to accomplish is not necessarily a match for one’s given talents. What is important is to find the talent that best matches with one’s abilities to maximize the individual’s potential. What that has translated to my teaching is the understanding that not all students are going to be excellent in all things and what is important is to help channel students toward the things that enable them to be most successful.
Describe a positive or negative incident that has affected you.
A specific incident which influenced me as a student was when I had a class in high-school and the class was given an assignment to design and solder a stained glass window and I decided I wanted to not do the window but create a glass lamp shade. The teacher did not care if I did the alternative but, was very adamant that I was going to fail. My mother had created lamps from stained glass before and I had some understanding of the process it would entail. What I felt is that since the teacher had no idea how to create the lampshade I would not be able to do it. I completed the project (not without repetitive reminders of my inevitable failure) and felt compelled to overcome the limits that were put upon me by the teacher. I discovered that I tended to challenge the established rules in many of my studies and sometimes it has created some issues with the teachers. I try to remember this when dealing with my students, artfully balancing their desires against what can and cannot be accomplished. However, I must always respect the drive to overcome as I had in my studies.
Reflections on My Teaching Experiences
Explain your greatest success as an educator.
Not having been a teacher for very long I have experienced great student successes from contest and scholarship winners to consistently high marks on end of program exams. But, I would consider the most significant success that stands out to me was during my first year of teaching. That year I awakened the seniors that were with me for only one year but, in that year I opened the eyes of many, who up until that point were unsure of what to do with themselves and had not realized what kind of work ethic was required to be successful after high school. This made me realize what I was to do with the students, dispensing information about the subject which I teach is important but, what is more valuable is to mold capable workers that will seek knowledge and take pride in the work they do.
Explain your greatest challenge as an educator.
I feel the greatest challenge is working through the distractions that are placed upon teachers that have little bearing on the quality of the learning experience. Initiatives that work well in one situation can sometime hinder the progress of another. Education seems to be very slow to adapt in the case of many classroom situations that get mandated by individuals that are not inside the classroom. Balancing these things with what is proving to work in the classroom can, at times, be in conflict with each other.
My Vision of Teaching and Learning.
To create the "School of Best Practices," I would include the following teaching and learning experiences:
Integrate more real world experiences. Students are much more interested in things that occur that has real applications and consequences. To help enable this, teachers must be engaged in some sort of work/trade enhancement program. This will help to bring experience into the classroom.
To help my students, I would like to explore these topics:
To help my students I would encourage a student to analyze their current belief system. Whether it is politics, religion, or social values to even simple things like what they eat or their favorite color. By doing this the students will become able to see other peoples viewpoints. Understanding how people see their world is the ultimate ability to communicate which has the underpinnings of all successful design. But, of course this can be highly controversial in public school so I don’t see this occurring.
My Philosophy of Teaching and Learning
Education is a process. Becoming educated is not the answer to a student’s needs but a means to get to there. The purpose of education is to enable students to solve problems through experimentation based upon knowledge. The results of this process will, when properly implemented, result in the achievement of the desired answer or result. In order for teachers to be successful in imparting this process for analyzing knowledge, they need to be aware of many factors.
A teacher must show a concern and respect for all students by creating an atmosphere allowing the student to initiate and demonstrate curiosity in the course material without distractions or repression of ideas. Students need to be engaged and respected. If the learning environment is one where the student is physically or emotionally uncomfortable, the student will not perform to his or her potential.
Another factor in the learning process is the need for standards. Standards establish the expectations that students need to achieve. These standards exist so that students are functioning at a level necessary to function in life. Some minimum standards are established through various occupational needs, state or local government guidelines, and academic institutions. In order for students to achieve these standards, teachers need to show a commitment to clearly defined and structured instruction. Structured instruction establishes the process the students will use to go about learning the information presented to them. The structure, coupled with expectations, needs to be properly prepared and executed by the teacher so that all students understand the expectations. These expectations need to be set high enough to challenge, yet at a level achievable for the student.
Vocational education expectations focus on the training of market-ready, entry-level workers for the needs of the economy, or to prepare the student for a post-secondary education focusing in an industry. Students enrolled in a vocational program learn by hands-on experiences. These experiences help certain students to understand concepts that they may not grasp in the traditional academic read-and-recite learning system. In order for vocational education to work, the student’s hands-on experiences need to use the latest techniques and materials in their subject to be viable. Some of the materials may include technology.
Technology in the classroom needs to be understood from many aspects. Schools need the funding, space and skills to implement a technology plan into the student’s curriculum. Instructors and students need to be fluent in the technology, so that learning to use the technology doesn’t become the curriculum. When any of these aspects are not at a level of functionality, the learning process is hindered by the attempts to compensate for the shortfalls.
Maintaining a level of understanding of the technology can be difficult for some teachers. Just as technology in the classroom can change, so do teaching techniques, industry requirements and student cultures. Teachers need to frequently take time to reflect upon their classroom to see if any growth is needed in those aspects.
In contemplating all of these factors, as well as the need for students to become independent thinkers, one can see that teaching is a dynamic profession. The ability to actively balance all of these objectives is overwhelming when looked at from a holistic point of view. I have found that it does require the investment of time and energy, but eventually the classroom will be a successful one when applying this philosophy in practice. Whenever these factors are working with a proper balance, it can be observed that students are adept at acquiring knowledge.
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