Week 8 Check-In Reflection

 

1. After spending 4 weeks in content classrooms, what would you assess as the major challenges facing teachers in today's classrooms?  (Please list as many as you have identified and provide a brief explanation of the challenge.)
2. What would you assess as the major challenges facing students in today's classrooms?  What obstacles to learning did you see in your students?
3. Considering your professional growth into the role of professional educator, what would you identify as important to focus on in the second field experience?  Please consider this question from three perspectives--the what of teaching (content knowledge), the how of teaching (pedagogical knowledge), and the dispositions necessary to be an effective teacher.

One of the main challenges I noticed in my mentor teachers classroom and it was something that I heard and noticed throughout Southside Middle School was that teachers were struggling to keep referral rates down due to student behavior. Referalls could be partially due to classroom management and whether or not there is effective and clear classroom expectations going on. Another challenge I noticed in today's classrooms are that the textbooks students are using are quite outdated. This could be due to the amount of funding given to certain public school corporations and teachers are finding additional outside resources to implement with the outdated textbooks to give students more opportunities. Another challenge I have noticed is it seems like teachers are burnt out. I have heard teachers say that they are tired, or have asked me why I am going into this field. It was almost like they were trying to see if I had a backup plan because they are feeling stretched thin with their job currently. My mentor teacher mentioned that they feel overwhelmed because more curriculum, assessments, standards, etc. are being pushed on them to implement but students are barely grasping the basics. I think teachers are feeling like they are being cluttered and are looking for ways to implement clarity.

A major challenge that I am seeing personally in my classroom is that students just are not engaged with the material and are easily sidetracked if one student begins to make noises or act out. I am also noticing in my classroom that students are not at the literacy and competency level that they should be at in their age. This has created my mentor teacher to go back and revise quite a few of their lessons, assessments, and learning goals. It also means that students are taking longer to comprehend the materials being given to them. Students are beginning to be cluttered in a sense. Some students in my class are at the unistructural level of understanding in the SOLO taxonomy, and some are at the multistructural level just beginning to grasp the relational level. Yet, learning cannot be done efficiently to move up these levels if students are using time distracting one another. Maybe that it because students are having trouble with a clear understanding of content. Several students have IEPs and speech impediments and there is no aid in the room, or one that I knew of before I entered the classroom. During assignments, I often read instructions and explain what is being said, as well as taking extra time to understand what the student is saying. Before this, I do not know how much direct attention these students were receiving, and how not having that affected their learning progress. 

I think what is most important to focus on during the second field rotation would be making sure that students are grasping the overarching learning goals and objectives. The I can, I will, I know statements that we want students to know by the end a lesson or unit. But just knowing the information is only a small part I have come to learn. Learning transferable skills and showing students to apply their thinking to the most important information nad ow they can use concepts and skills they have learned in the future is even more important. In terms of the content knowledge, basing lessons off of standards but integrating plenty of formative and summative assessments that carry meaning, that do not include clutter. Pedagogically, the classroom will contain a focused ideal learning environment, and in my practicum classroom now, try and work towards that in the second round.Trying to get students of all learning levels involved in class each day. Students in my practicum class always think that assignments are boring and annoying and in the second round I want to encourage students and try and help them realize that tejey are not just isolated, arbitrary tasks; that they are tasks with meaning and intent. Disposition wise, would be being stricter with students, not authoritarian as a teacher but find my teacher voice even more and not let things slide multiple times, because asking a student to stop doesn't always work. Being firmer by reinforcing the correct thing they should be doing.