Nature of Schools

1. The peer review system has a lot of pros and cons for new teachers. The peer review method can be an excellent resource for new teachers to improve a variety of aspects in their classrooms such as classroom management, material implementation, and teaching strategies. Like all professional athletes, they may be the best at what they do, but they are still coached by someone everyday. So even if teachers are "the best in their field" then they can use a little coaching as well. According to the Evolution of Peer Coaching  article, the peer coaching helped almost all teachers implement new teaching strategies in their classroom. Another advantage of peer review is the ability to form a team as professional developers. You as a teacher would be able to work with your colleagues and collaborate to try a new method or a new behavior plan that will ultimately benefit the students. Now that they have learned that strategy, they can model and coach another teacher on that same str...

This is the layout i would like for my first classroom design. The tables are put in place because it gives the students more room and they are able to work with a table partner to collaborate. The teacher's desk is in front of the chalkboard to see all of the students from a good angle. There is an overhead projector to the side that in this case will serve as a "smartboard". The design allows for easy access from the teacher to all parts of the classroom.

Since  I am just about to be done with my first year of teaching, I already know what to expect for the first year. So for this blog post, I will reflect on what my expectations were  in September when I officially began my teaching career. I thought I would have my very own classroom, be creating wonderful interactive, hand on and exciting lesson plans. I thought All of the students would do homework when it was assigned, and that they would be easy to work with. I could not be more wrong with my expectations. As a first year special-ed teacher, you will most likely not have your own room, which is OK! It gives you someone to chat with in the mornings and afternoons. Your students will not always be easy to work with. They are going to have misconceptions, bad days, and may not find the "exciting" reading assignment so exciting. In your first year, you will quickly learn that you are in survival mode. You are trying out new methods of technology, new strategies, and will al...

When taking the qualities of a good teacher quiz, I came to the realization that all of the listed items should receive a five on the importance scale. Having a good sense of humor is important because it makes you more likable to the students and it adds a bit of fun to your class. Knowing the subject matter is of course also very important, how can we teach what we do not know? A good teacher knows how to manage student behavior to ensure for a smooth-running class. Since you will be teaching young people as a teacher, we should be respecting them. If we do not show that we respect our students as people, regardless of their age, then we will never earn their respect back. Teachers are people who think on the fly, therefore we need to change and adapt quickly. We need to be able to change our lessons in seconds to think of a backup plan on our feet. Not only are those qualities are vital to good teachers, but getting along with adults, being well organized, and approaching things wi...

The website I choose was  oceana.org . I choose this website because even though I am not a science teacher, I saw "Marine Life" and I was drawn to explore more about it! Oceana is a website that is geared towards protecting the world's oceans. It's purpose is to educate students about different marine life in the ocean and how they can preserve these animals and protect them in our oceans. Students can learn about these animals, including fun facts about their favorite marine life. The website is organized, and has beautiful photos of all the different types of marine life living in our oceans, ranging from coral to sharks. When it comes to the rating scale, this website has the following credentials. There is an email contact provided along with a list of heads of the company such as CEO's, Board members, and a staff list. This website clearly supports the campaign to protect the world's oceans, offering a place to donate to help the world's oceans...

50 Things You Can Do with Google Classroom, is the eye-opening video about how we can incorporate google into our classrooms. For those who do not know, google classroom is a way to share information to students, assign work, and collect work. I use google classroom for my students, the majority of teachers in my school are google classroom users. I use google classroom to assign work. My school provides all students with chromebooks that all have google accounts on them. Our school is working to become more of a paperless school, so therefore most if not all of our assignments are assigned and submitted through google classroom. I love using the classroom because it allows me to keep all of the work for the class in one space. I can also reply on my student's submitted documents with feedback and give them a grade, all right on the posted assignment. What I liked about this video was how it showed us the student view of the site. Before this video, I did not know what the stu...

1. What diverse learners are there in today's classroom? In today's class, we see a spectrum of different learners. We as teachers need to adapt and plan accordingly to the types of students that we have. We will get all different kinds of students who come into our classrooms. These students may have all kinds of disabilities with different kinds of skills. We as teachers need to address these issues and personalize our learning so they can be successful in the classroom. 2. What does brain research provide to adjust their teaching in the digital age? Brain research tells us that the way students learn is almost like a fingerprint, no student learns the same way as the other. If this is the case, then teachers need to access all the different parts of the brain that make it possible for the students to learn. 3. What is UDL? How do its principle's help teachers improve planning and teaching in the technologically advanced classroom? Universal Design for Learning is ...

Writing a letter to yourself is quite a therapeutic experience. On the day I wrote my letter, work was not easy. My students were taking their final exam an were ultimately struggling because they did not take the time to prepare and study at home. After a day of being frustrated, it was nice to write about looking forward into the future. I have a lot of new ideas that I am excited to start using in the classroom. These ideas are going to make the students more engaged and will help them organize their materials to be successful. I also enjoyed writing the letter because I got to reflect on some of the topics that we covered over the course of this class. While it seems like these last 4 weeks have flown by, there was so much to cover that it had seemed like this class went on for a few months.

As our society is adapting, our education system must adapt and change as well. Our world revolves around technology. In 2019, if there were a power outage throughout the world, our entire lives as we know it would shut down. Because we are so reliant on our technology, then our education system and our schools will start to reflect what the demands of society are. In the video highlighting the Education On Air Conference, the educators talked about how they were able to incorporate technology into their curriculum. These teachers found success in their implementation of integrating technology in their instruction. By teachers empowering their students, they are giving their students the inner motivation to find success and to problem solve. The Education On Air Conference also featured teachers who were using the component of student choice. The teachers had taught them the necessary skills to understand the concept. Once the students got that concept down, then they can choose how t...

There is no doubt that immigrant students face struggles when coming to a new country. Not only are they immersed into American culture, but they also have to adjust to a new school setting, which can be a huge change for regular citizen's in the United States. To help our new students adjust to this "culture shock", there are many resources we can use in our schools and community to help these students adjust to a normal life in the US. As a school we can have reinforcements put in place to help immigrants students adjust to the new culture. This can be done almost as a 'buddy system'. A new immigrant can be paired with a student who may have immigrated from the same country, or the area surrounding the country. This student can help the newly immigrant student with any question he/she may have about this new environment, help with language understanding, and get them adjusted to the school in general. In the video, a Russian immigrant student shared that he w...

Establishing a diverse curriculum in schools has become a widely discussed issue/topic amongst teachers, school, and state officials. I myself teach US History. In the course, we do cover a whole civil rights movement section. But the majority of the course is "how the white man conquered North America". While this is  our history, there are so many other ethnic groups who played an important role in the development of our country. In regards to Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content  article from James A. Bank, we really do fall under a level 1 category, only acknowledging African American artist, visionaries, and creators during black history month. We talk about the Native Americans during Thanksgiving, and we address Cinco de Mayo on May 5th. Many schools have students of those ethnic background in our classroom. For them, that is their history, and we should be exploring it. We also need to talk about the concept of 'Mirror and Window' books. For me gro...

Digital pedagogy involves classroom practices that require the use of other forms of modern technology incorporated into instruction. 1. I have observed a few digital pedagogy assignments in the classroom. I have seen students use social media as a form of classroom instruction and I have also seen virtual classrooms used. Interactive maps have become popular in social studies classrooms, and students are keeping up with classroom happenings and announcements through sites like Edmodo or Google Classroom. 2. For the teacher who is cautious about incorporating digital pedagogy, there are many ways to incorporate it in small ways. You can start by using blogging assignments in the classroom. By blogging, students have a safe digital outlet to share their thoughts and expressions. 3. According to the Digital Pedagogy  article, there are various training courses that teachers can take to work to incorporate digital pedagogy in the classroom. These can be found Khan Academy, Udaci...

John Taylor Gatto showcases an interesting take on how public education is crippling our children. essentially saying that he is Against School . Gatto starts out with the definition of boredom. Gatto makes the interesting statement what was told to him by his grandfather saying: "he told me I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my own fault and no one else's". Gatto was using this as a segway conveying the message that if the students become bored with the curriculum or with the teacher, they should find a way to make it interesting themselves. The whole gist of the article is a disagreement with traditional public schools. Gatto wants students to be able to manage themselves. The idea of students "managing themselves" is not a widely accepted concept in the public school world. It is not that teachers are not open to this idea, but it falls under the category of "needing to meet certain curriculum" or "we...

As I had mentioned before, my philosophy of teaching stems from the behaviorism model. The behaviorism model emphasizes reinforcement through repetition and positive and negative reinforcement. I had also mentioned that this is my teaching philosophy because it fits the needs of the learners I have. In my heart, I like the cognitive constructivist approach the best. I think this strategy is useful in classrooms because it allows for students to set their own goals, making themselves motivated and active participants in their learning. They are discovering their own learning. Next year in my classroom, I could see myself moving closer to this ideology. By establishing a system of self-assessing and self-monitoring, this education philosophy can be achievable with all kinds of learners.

There are multiple ways that teachers can form approaches to get content across to students. We can narrow down our teaching strategy to 4 basic models. Social Interactive Family, Information-Processing Family, Personal Family, and Behavioral Family. Within these 4 models contain the components of different teaching strategies. Each one of these models is vital to the learning process of the student. Students need all approaches to teaching (direct instruction, cooperative learning, and inquiry practices) in order to be well-rounded learners. All of these modes of teaching work because they help all kinds of students. In the Approaches to Instruction article, we can see the main teaching strategies explained. Direct Instruction  is a great model to use when introducing a new topic to students. This is sometimes done through lecturing or questioning. Cooperative learning allows the students to work with each other. After the students have been introduced to the new topic, they have ...