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.
Sydney Clark 