Learning Blog #2

A Remarkable Teacher is...

There were many remarkable teachers who influenced my decision to become a teacher. What they all had in commons was their commitment to students and student learning. This was embodied in volunteering their personal time to help with extra-curricular activities. In my experience, these extracurricular activities are vital in helping student success and motivation. They also give opportunity to students who might otherwise not have the opportunity to play a sport, take music lessons, perform in a play, etc. Furthermore, they were respectful towards everyone, created a safe learning environment and provided all of their students with equally opportunities to succeed. In order to respond to the needs of the students they used various instruction, assessment, and evaluation techniques. These remarkable teachers made sure to stay current and up to date. They adjusted their lesson plans so that what they were teaching was relevant to their students. Furthermore, you could tell that they were knowledgeable of and passionate about their subject area. Who would listen to someone who doesn’t seem to know or care about what he or she is teaching?

My Belief Statements

The belief statements that I aspire to as a teacher are:

• The teacher is a facilitator, coordinator; not the dispenser of knowledge;

• Active criticism of new ideas is a more desirable response than passive acceptance;

• Students learn best when actively engaged;

• Classroom management should be preventative, not reactive;

• Teachers must create a positive classroom climate that will foster respect, participation, dignity, and trust.

Technology

I intend to use technology as a tool to assist learning. Some basic ways technology can be used include online collaboration tools such as Google drive as well as presentation software such as PowerPoint and Prezi. The benefits of online collaboration rather than in person meetings is it allows group work to be shared instantaneously without the need to physically be in the same space. Software used for presentations can help to organize ideas in a clear and easy to follow way. They also allow for multimedia to be imbedded in the presentation in order to make it more interactive and engaging.