Kassie Vaughn

TWS 8 Section 4

Professional Development

IV. Reflection for Professional Development

Goal #1 => From my experience in this Clinical, I have learned that I must focus more on monitoring my time management of instruction during lessons. Throughout each of my lessons I conducted in my third grade classroom this semester, I was given approximately an hour to teach the class and have them complete their assessment. However, more times than not, once I finished with my instruction, the students did not have much time to work on their assessments because it was either time for them to go to Special Area or home. As a result, I believe in my future lessons I will strive to make my instruction consist of less components while still teaching the children the same amount of valuable information through engaging activities. When I become a teacher and have my own classroom full of students, I know that we will have a daily schedule we must abide by in order to keep both myself and the students sane. Therefore, my desire is to work toward strengthening my time management skills, while still developing effective teaching strategies. Goal #2 => From the experience in my Clinical, I have also learned the value and importance of having effective classroom management. When I taught my first two lessons, I realized extremely quick that I had to improve the way in which I transitioned the students from the carpet to their seats and from activity to activity, because it was somewhat hard to get their attention while the children were moving and active. In order to grasp the students attention, my cooperating teacher would say, Class, Class, and the children will respond with, Yes, Yes. However, I wanted to develop my own attention-getter for me and the class to share. For my next instructional strategies, I worked to discover my own unique way of grasping the childrens attention and easily transitioning from activity to activity, which ended up being, I would say, I said a Boom-Chicka-Boom and the students would respond with, I said a Boom-Chicka-Laka-Chicka-Laka-Boom! Therefore, I think in my future lessons I will seek to do the same thing and develop a unique attention-getter that my class and I can share together, enjoy, and most importantly, conduct a well-managed classroom. It is crucial for teachers to establish a learning environment in which students feel safe, relaxed, and willing to take risks, especially for learners who may have had negative experiences in traditional classroom environments. A supportive learning environment can be described as enhancing their self-esteem and expanding their sense of family, which offer children more opportunities to pursue their goals in life. In order to create a positive, safe learning environment where students feel their opinions and contributions to the class matter, and are valued by all, my aspiration is to focus on following three different aspects: 1) build a strong classroom community, 2) use positive nonverbal communication, 3) build self-esteem and self-efficacy, and 4) motivate students.