Pre-assessment: Child/Adolescent Development

Pre-assessment: Child/Adolescent Development

2.2 Engaging Students in Learning & 2.3 Reflecting on Teaching

Engaging students means finding a way to reach every student, and for the students to get as much out of a lesson as they can. I think that reflecting on teaching goes hand in hand with keeping students engaged. As a teacher you need to continue to figure out what is working in their teaching and how to alter your own methods so that you can continue to reach and engage students. This week we looked at adolescent development and how our knowledge of it has shaped our teaching philosophy. In result I have found that it has mostly affected in the ways that I see want to engage my students and how I can continuously alter my plans to make them more fit for individual students.

As much as I would like to say that I am an expert on child development, I must admit that I do not know a ton about the concept. There are so many different steps, stages, and theories to sift through on the topic that the information available is endless. What I can say is that I am very interested in the topic and enjoy learning about it. The one piece of information that I feel is one hundred percent true and has affected my outlook on teaching is that everyone doesn’t develop the same. This reflects as to why everyone doesn’t learn the same way. It is evident that everyone’s cognitive and social development has an individual time schedule, which is why it is hard for teachers to engage all students at once. So it seems the more that teachers can learn about development the easier it is going to be to figure out how to engage and alter lessons to achieve learning for all.

After reflecting on my previous knowledge, it has become so clear to me that what you know about development truly affects how you teach. It also determines if you are going to be an effective teacher or not. I have learned that I want to continue to learn about development so that I will be able to understand the ways in which my students are mentally and socially developing. This will not only help me as a student in the ARC program, but will help my students in the future. I am excited to continue to grow in my knowledge and am going to propose that I do so to the best of my ability.

Characteristics of an Effective Educator

It takes a plethora of different specific characteristics and skills combined to create an effective educator. There are so many different attributes that have to be put together to form a consistent well rounded teacher. I hope to become that kind of teacher one day. Four specific characteristics that I have found to be the most important from my own experience are enthusiasm, patience, kindness, and respect. Beginning with the enthusiasm, to be a good educator you have to be excited about what you are teaching. If you aren’t excited about it, than your students won’t be either. Patience is another characteristic that you must have to succeed at this profession. Learning has its own time schedule for each individual, and a lot of the time students are not going to understand things the first time around. Thus meaning that as a teacher you need to be patient with students as they take their own learning journey. Thirdly I believe that kindness is key. Proving a kind atmosphere in the classroom promotes a positive learning experience. Everyone wants to have the nice teacher. Lastly and most importantly, I believe that an educator has to be respectful. Teachers are role models for their students and if and educator provides respect to their students, students will respect them in return.

Along with those characteristics educators also have to have a certain skill set up their sleeves. Most of these skills have to do with classroom management and ability to differentiate to appeal to different learning styles. Classroom management is very important because as a teacher there is only one of you and 30 of your students so keeping the classroom in check, but also creating an exciting learning environment for students. The key is to find the happy medium. Differentiation skills are also a huge aspect to being an effective teacher. My biggest learning philosophy is that every child can learn. it is educators jobs to find the ways in which every student can achieve their learning goal.