My First Classroom

Create a Classroom

Above is the image I made of what I believe my future classroom will look like. The student 'desks' are lab tables that students will use for their labs where they will be working in pairs with a lab partner. There is both a projector screen and a whiteboard so that I can go back and forth between using powerpoints and drawing/ writing notes on the board. I have a closet and bookshelves to help store all of the lab equipment I am going to need, as well as books and magazines that students can browse in their free time. I also have my own lab table to be able to give demonstrations to the students for what they are supposed to be doing in the lab. Overall this is a very practical set up for a lab classroom. However, I don't necessarily want students to be sitting at their tables the whole class, I just didn't know how to incorporate something like that into this kind of design. The more active students are, the more they are engaged, the more they learn.

Peer Review

I believe that teacher peer-review is a multi-faceted system. There are positives and negatives. One of the advantages is that you are being reviewed by someone who has been in your shoes before, so they understand all of the struggles you are having with the new job. A disadvantage would be that they may not be completely qualified to review/judge your progress and efforts properly and administration might not fully accept everything they say for their review. This may cause it to be less effective because of the administration's trust in their word, and also if they aren't really trained on how to do it they won't necessarily notice everything they need to. I think I would love to have my first evaluation done this way so that my peer teacher would be more willing to help me fix the mistakes I made, and help prepare me for the real review done by the administration.

What makes a good teacher?

Recently I took a poll about what qualities a good teacher needs to have, and honestly every single item on the list I believe are incredibly important for a teacher to have. However, while the majority of people agreed with my answers, some people answered in ways I thought were very confusing. One of the items was "knowledge of the subject matter" which I thought for sure everyone would agree is incredibly important for a good teacher to have, and yet 1% of the people who voted said it was 'barely important'. Even though it is such a small percentage I would still like to understand what was going on in the minds of the people who put that knowing the subject they teach is not very important for a teacher. I believe that creativity, innovation, variety, organization, reflection, introspection, motivating, enjoying young people, and all of the other qualities all join together to make an amazing teacher.

Educational Websites

Early Childhood:
ABC Expedition
Looking at this site I don't believe it would be appropriate for my high school class, as it is mostly to teach children the different letters, and will not challenge them at all.

Elementary:
PlayTime Theater
This app could be more useful if students were doing a project where they can create their own video, but still would not necessarily challenge them to think and discuss without being prompted. There is also no author or email contact provided, and the institution supporting this app is unclear.

Middle School:
NASA
This site provides a large wealth of information that can be used in any kind of classroom, no matter the age or level. This website is helpful for students to learn on their own, and for sources as a teacher.

High School:
Marine Life Encyclopedia
This site would be perfect to introduce to a class of high school biology students. They would be able to use the information for projects, studying, and the teachers can use the articles as sources.

Digital Media:
ESchool News
This website is a good resource for educators to learn about new advancements in technology, but I don't necessarily see how it could be incorporated appropriately into a classroom. Still a very useful website.

Teaching with Google Classroom

50 Things you can do with the Google Classroom
This video is a wonderful way to educate teachers on how to use this wonderfully helpful and useful app. Alice Keeler shows teachers that using google classroom is not only easy but also has so many different ways that it can be incorporated into the classroom. She talks about how it is easy to incorporate other things into the website, and that it is not a replacement site, it is simply a place for students to be able to go and better understand what is going on in their classes. I think this is such a helpful video, and her blog posts and book is something that really helps teachers become better educated in using these new teaching tools.

A Letter to Me

Recently I wrote a letter to my future self using the website FutureMe about what I have learned throughout my education about teaching, and what it means to me. The letter I wrote is below:

Dear Future Daley,

By now you are probably off teaching somewhere and have forgotten that you sent this. I have learned so much at the Mount, and I am sure you have learned even more since I wrote this. So far what I have learned has been about how to be a good teacher, and how sometimes things that your teachers of the past used worked against contributing to your learning. One of the most important things I have learned is that teaching needs to be creative and imaginative. It's time to be done with boring textbooks and lectures. Students need to be excited and engaged in order to learn! Throwing information at them will not get them to learn. They need to be able to digest what they're learning, and it is your job to help them develop the critical thinking skills they need to be able to do that. This is where your strength lies. You have always been good at thinking of creative and even metaphorical ways of presenting information, and I am sure you will come up with many crazy ideas for your classes. You are also incredibly passionate about what you do, and I hope you never lose that, because that is what will drive you to be the best teacher you can be. Your weaknesses lie in getting overly involved in things that don't matter to you, so just be careful where this road leads you as a teacher. My advice is to continue loving what you do, even if that means you need to change what you are doing, and to always try your hardest for every single child in your class no matter what, because they need you and look up to you. You will make an amazing teacher.

From Daley (6/11/19)


I think this is a very beneficial experience because it allows us in the future to look back and not only see how far we have come, but also reminds us of where we were and what our expectations were. This can help our future selves remember where we wanted to be, and reflect on either how we got there, or whether we strayed from our path at all. I am excited to see what I think and where I am when I receive this letter.

The New World of Educational Technology

Today, there are so many different parts of diversity that make up a classroom. It is no longer just ethnic or religious diversity, but also learning disabilities, physical disabilities, emotional and behavioral problems, students with a lack of interest in school or in the subject, and also students who have English as their second language (ESL). Fortunately for us teachers, technological advancements can help us figure out the best way to teach these students. Brain research helps provide teachers with the how, why, and what of student's learning. This helps teachers understand what is happening in students brains and the best way to present information to get them to truly understand it. One of the recent approaches to this is the Universal Design for Learning or UDL. UDL uses technology to include all students in learning regardless of ability or background, and allows teachers to rethink critical elements in education, like goals, material, methods, assessments.

The Future of Education

Google Conference "Education on Air"

Looking forward into the future can be a scary thing. However, the outlook that I see for education is exciting and I am looking forward to being able to be a part of the changing atmosphere of education. Education used to be just about giving students information we thought they needed to know. Now that idea has changed. Teachers and school systems are focused on empowering students and promoting and developing them into the best they can be. They promote individuality, speaking up for yourself and for causes you deem worthy, and throw students into the deep end of education where they struggle, but in the end, truly learn. For the longest time, students would just memorize the info, regurgitate it on a test, and then forget it. That's not happening anymore. Students struggle until they truly understand something and then are able to recreate it without even thinking because of their struggle. Being able to see the educational world move in this direction, towards a more progressivist outlook with students in mind being their own individual selves, only continues to make me excited to become a teacher.

Differences with Diversity

What school and community resources might you use to help immigrant students?

When given the question above to think about, there are a lot of different ideas that come to mind, but there are two aspects that really need to be incorporated into the education of foreign students. In order to give these students the best education possible, it is important that they understand what they are being taught, and they can't do that if there is a language barrier. Immigrant students who speak a different language as their first language need a resource to help them develop the understanding of the new language so that they can actually learn what they are being taught by the teachers if it is in a different language. This can be done in so many ways, but ESL (English as a second language) programs are in pretty much every single school in the US to help these students with the language. This way they also can have a group of other students who speak their first language that they can bond with and become friends so that they don't feel alone.
Another aspect necessary to look into for immigrant students is their culture. Some foreign cultures are very similar to that of the United States, but a lot of the times they have different customs and traditions that also need to be honored by the schools and teachers. This includes things like holidays and superstitions. If the student's cultural needs are ignored and the student is forced to assimilate they will feel alone and like they don't belong, and most likely will miss their culture. Things like clubs and activities can help students feel more like they are still attached to their culture. 

What it Means to be an Effective Teacher

After taking a quiz on what I have learned so far about being an effective teacher and the different theories of learning I have found that I have learned so much from studying this topic. There are so many different styles and models you can base your teaching design on, it really shows how unique teachers can be, even within the same subject. I have also found that my philosophy is about covering as much as possible, not topic wise necessarily, but making sure all of the students are reached equally and by using as many different methods as possible. I look forward to continuing learning about how to be the best teacher I can be.

Models of Teaching

Being a facilitative teacher is a fairly new idea that many older teachers may believe could be the end of the 'proper' way of schooling. However, being more of a guide rather than a dictator is incredibly beneficial for the kids. Gatto, in the article linked below, says it as it is, even if it is hard for some people to hear. Kids are being trained to listen to authority and be as similar in views as possible. This is not the way to develop smart citizens, it is the way to develop robots that will never question anything. Kids nowadays need to learn how to be independent and think critically and having a teacher that takes complete control over the classroom does not allow that. Allowing the students to have control while the teacher watches and guides them allows the students to be able to develop fully as an individual. Being able to develop a model of teaching that allows students to figure it out themselves, and not just be force-fed the information. 


Against School

How to Approach Teaching

There are four different models of teaching: 

• Social Interactive
• Information Processing
• Personal
• Behavioral 

Social interactive is when students help each other with their learning. This can be through peer tutoring, cooperative learning, reciprocal teaching, or project-based learning. This model helps students develop their own understanding without the teacher getting in the way, and possibly trying to teach a concept in only one way. 

Information processing promotes creative and critical thinking about different problems that are linked to class concepts. This can include concept formation, inquiry learning, or synectics. 

Personal is based on the students as individuals. Each student is different and has different ways of learning concepts. Because this is such an individualized model it focuses mostly on individualized instruction and nondirective teaching. 

The behavioral model uses mastery learning, direct instruction, and computer-assisted instruction. These are based on observable objectives that the teacher can track for each student. 

The examples for each model are not nearly all of the different approaches to getting information across to students. There are so many different approaches and so many different ways to handle each approach. I believe it is important for teachers to not get too stuck on one model or approach. If a teacher only uses one approach (for example lectures) the students will get bored of it before the year is over. By providing students with variety in the ways that they are being taught they are more likely to be engaged the whole year as opposed to getting stuck with just one method. This also helps because of what I said earlier about how all students are different. Each student might prefer a different teaching method, and by using a variety instead of just one or two, and this way the information you are trying to get across will get into more students.