Professional Expectations
One of the biggest things we discussed was how to properly communicate with families and get them involved in their child's school life. One of the benefits of communicating with parents is that it may help a child who is struggling with school become more well adjusted if their parent(s) are involved in their school life.
My reflective leader and liaison would come into my classroom and tell me the things I was doing really well, but also provide me feedback to improve some of the things I still needed work on. We would discuss after our morning of on-sites and work on a plan to improve what I was doing in order to provide the very best I could for my students.
In our resume workshop, we discussed the proper way to write the things we were doing in our classrooms. We took these statements and put them on our template resume provided by Golden Apple. We also learned the important things to include on our resumes, and what should be kept off of them. A lot of us have never made a real resume, so this workshop was giving us great advice for our professional resume. Some of us also created a linked.in account to reach out to job opportunities through the site when the chance arises.
My reflective leader and liaison would come into my classroom and tell me the things I was doing really well, but also provide me feedback to improve some of the things I still needed work on. We would discuss after our morning of on-sites and work on a plan to improve what I was doing in order to provide the very best I could for my students.
In our resume workshop, we discussed the proper way to write the things we were doing in our classrooms. We took these statements and put them on our template resume provided by Golden Apple. We also learned the important things to include on our resumes, and what should be kept off of them. A lot of us have never made a real resume, so this workshop was giving us great advice for our professional resume. Some of us also created a linked.in account to reach out to job opportunities through the site when the chance arises.
Cultural Competencies
Through the work of my Instagram Autobiography project, I was able to find the traits I have that are connected to my persona as a preservice teacher. I also took those traits and connected to the Professional Teaching Standards, and grew those traits to fit the standards to their best potential. Through the discussions of reflective seminar and within the coursework, I was supportive of other cultural groups that were not of my own, and was supportive of those groups' feelings, ideas, opinions, and views.
Civic engagment
I researched the demographics of my on-site school and the resources in the surrounding area through the Illinois School Report Card, as well as my own school to compare the two. The comparison helped me take what I know about my community and flip my perspective to learn about the community of my on-site school. I also looked at my student's course work, as well as my own course work, and connected to the real-world and civic engagement. For example, we were learning about animals during the 2nd week I was at my on-site, and the article for the day was about dolphins. I had recently done a dolphin discovery excursion over winter break, and had a picture of myself with the dolphin. I talked about it and connected it to their reading article.
grit & growth mindset
There is a lot of feedback that comes with the teaching profession - whether it be from our principals and superintendents, our peers and teaching partners, or even our own students, tasing feedback from others with an open is one of the most beneficial things we can do as a teacher. In reflective seminar, I was able to take feedback from my peers, my liaison, and my reflective leader and improved my teaching practices where it was needed.
One routine that I found enabled growth mindset was one that I took from my liaison and tweaked it form small group in one of my classrooms. We would read their reading article together taking turns, and do the questions together taking turns reading. Their reading scores improved, and now they can do the routine without me. Another routine I found that enabled growth mindset was also in my first class. My cooperating teacher would have a different question every morning, such as "What is something you wish people would say to you more often?" This enabled growth mindset because it was a very open ended question.
One routine that I found enabled growth mindset was one that I took from my liaison and tweaked it form small group in one of my classrooms. We would read their reading article together taking turns, and do the questions together taking turns reading. Their reading scores improved, and now they can do the routine without me. Another routine I found that enabled growth mindset was also in my first class. My cooperating teacher would have a different question every morning, such as "What is something you wish people would say to you more often?" This enabled growth mindset because it was a very open ended question.
instructional best practices
We worked with our reflective leader and liaison to come up with our own personal goals. We also worked with LEAP to learn about goal setting and what a good goal looks like (SMART goals).
One of the classroom expectations that seemed to be normal across all of the classrooms in the school was to actively participate. It encourages student conversation and collaboration. It also establishes an environment for learning because everyone is encouraged to ask questions and include their own input.
To communicate with our students and community stakeholders, our reflective group created personal education websites and Instagram accounts. We discuss our own teaching personas and our many great experiences at Golden Apple on our social media, and anyone can find us and learn about us!
Trauma and mental illness are very big and important topics in the world of education right now. One of the ways we became more informed was by attending a trauma training course with two psychiatrists from The Lurie's Children's Hospital. They taught us how to identify trauma and what necessary steps to take to support any future students who have who may have gone through past or any current trauma. We also had the chance to attend a great social and emotional learning class in one of our Scholar Choice Fridays.
One of the classroom expectations that seemed to be normal across all of the classrooms in the school was to actively participate. It encourages student conversation and collaboration. It also establishes an environment for learning because everyone is encouraged to ask questions and include their own input.
To communicate with our students and community stakeholders, our reflective group created personal education websites and Instagram accounts. We discuss our own teaching personas and our many great experiences at Golden Apple on our social media, and anyone can find us and learn about us!
Trauma and mental illness are very big and important topics in the world of education right now. One of the ways we became more informed was by attending a trauma training course with two psychiatrists from The Lurie's Children's Hospital. They taught us how to identify trauma and what necessary steps to take to support any future students who have who may have gone through past or any current trauma. We also had the chance to attend a great social and emotional learning class in one of our Scholar Choice Fridays.