Heather Witt

December 2, 2008

Teaching and Learning Reflection-Rough Draft

            The first day of school is still fresh in my mind. Twenty excited, energetic kindergarteners are ready for the thrill of coming to school and taking the challenge for the next 12 years of their lives. Of coarse the first challenge was remembering all of their names, which surprisingly turned out to be easier than I thought. We spent the day going over the school rules, taking a tour of the school, meeting our classmates, and learning everyday routines. After a long, eventful first day all of the students were ready to come back the next day. Thinking back to that first day of school I can hardly believe it is the same group of students. In the short few months of school these students have progressed and grown so quickly, continuing with each passing day. I have had the opportunity to observe their growth with amazement and look forward to the possibilities that come with the remainder of the school year. As a witness and teacher to their education, I know how each and every student learns independently and collaboratively. This is the key to their success.

            A classroom that builds relationships and has a positive classroom community or environment will be a huge contributor to student success. During student teaching building relationships with the students was a first priority. Giving the students opportunities to share about themselves and their lives is an important part of creating a classroom community. I joined students in learning, eating lunch together, and playing at recess. Along with student relationships come building relationships with parents and other family members. At one part of my student teaching I made two home visits to gain a better understanding of parents, their experiences, expectations, and to take part in their home lives. I will never forget after making one home visit the next week at school the student asking me, “Can you spend the night at my house tonight?” This showed me exactly how powerful relationships can be and the effect they have for a student to feel comfortable and befriended to ask such a question.

 Apart from building relationships with students, I built relationships with other co-workers, my cooperating teacher, and other school personal. These relationships as well as all the others made the transition into the teaching world more at ease and open. They became mentors and guides that fostered me long and answered my endless list of questions. They were there to turn to when I needed assistance or someone to just eat lunch with. They proved that not only is a classroom community essential, but also that school community is also a large part as well.  Not only did I build relationships I made life long friendships that will carry on into my future after student teaching.

My time student teaching, also led me to become more reflective about my teaching. Through my planning and instruction I was able to find my areas of strength and areas for improvement or change. Like any successful teacher it is important to be aware of those areas in order to plan for the future effectively. I feel that my strengths as a teacher are very reflective to me as a person and my personality. Promoting student/teacher relationships, using a variety of resources, and making content meaningful to the students are areas in which I am successful. I find to be successful. One area that I addressed in my PDP objectives was the goal to interrelate content areas. Near the beginning of my student teaching it didn’t feel like anything interrelated, so this became my focus for change. One thing that helped me meet my goal was the implementation of my unit plan. This allowed for interrelatedness among content areas because of the central theme or focus. The unit is a great way to interrelate content in a way that flows and is more concrete to the students.

Student teaching has been a wonderful, exciting experience for me. It has allowed me to grow and expand on my teaching philosophies and opened my eyes to the world of public education. I was also given the opportunity to build strong relationships with the students that I became deeply attached to and will always have a special place in my life as great attributors to my success as a teacher. For me student teaching was a continuous process that was built upon over time with the final product being a life long experience that laid the foundation for my future. Now the next step for me is to have my own classroom to put into practice my personal teaching philosophy as well as all the great ideas I learned along the road of education.