Characteristics Of a Novice Teacher #8

The characteristic I chose for my fourth posting is #8: The novice teacher should be a reflective practitioner. The artifact I chose to go with the characteristic is my video tape lesson and analysis. I wrote in my paper about this chracteristic and about how this assignment was a really great tool to reflect upon and make constructive changes to our teaching plans. We were required to video tape and lesson of ours (no more than 30min) and then go back and analyze what we saw. We consider such things has student engagement, teacher questioning, and teacher responses. When I returned to my video to analyze it I noticed some of these things more so than when I was actually teaching. Although I don't think it is practical for a teacher to tape her own lessons because it would be hard unless someone could do it for you, I do think that being about to see yourself teach opens up the door for a lot of improvement. Through the video I could see more clearly which students were not engaged and piddling in their desks, and which students were focused on the lesson at hand. Through this assignment I have learned a great deal about myself as a teacher and I think that is the purpose of reflection; to learn and to grow.

Characteristics Of a Novice Teacher #2

The artifact I chose this week was the Scholastic Home Page I created in EDUC 401, classroom management. We created this home page as a means of communication between home and school. The home page web page allowed us to create separate pages for class news, class projects, homework assignments, contact information, suggested book lists, and recommended computer games both on the Internet and on a CD-ROM. The program allows the creator to add clip art pictures, plentiful text, and hyperlinks. I had a lot of fun creating my page! I believe this would be a great communication tool because the Internet is so widely used in our society today. Parents or guardians can check on the home page from any computer, even at work! They can see what the class will be doing for the week, make note of special occasions and announcements, and encourage their children to explore some of the supplemental materials. I think this fits with characteristic number two because it provides a great tool for communication between school and home. Many teachers are sending newsletters home or weekly progress reports. Communication through technology is fast and generally fairly reliable. This home page would also allow people such as fathers or mothers abroad or even grandparents to keep up with the day to day life of their loved ones. I think the only down side to using this home page as communication would be that the teacher is not able to send private messages to parents. To be a good communicator I think a teacher should be open to new ideas and willing to work with everyone involved. The home page project from 401 was a great tool to help achieve this.

Characteristics Of a Novice Teacher #5

The artifact I chose for this post is my learning cycle I developed for the science methods course last Fall. The learning cycle involved topic development, student interviews, and development for activities for all five phases; engagement, exploration, explanation, expansion, and evaluation. My mentor teacher I and developed a topic together (Natural Resources) as it was something the students don't get to spend much time studying. After the topic was decided we conducted interviews to get a sense of students' prior knowledge about the subject. We used the interview information to develop lessons and activities to introduce the topic, hook the students, expand and apply their knowledge, and assess their progress. I have decided to file this artifact under characteristic #5: "We believe the novice teacher should have an in depth knowledge of Pedagogy." I believe this artifact is a good representation of this characteristic because a major portion of the assignment was development of the teaching methods or strategies we would need to use in order to ensure student learning. Each phase demanded different types of strategies in order to be most effective. Sometimes I used cooperative learning groups, other times it was direct instruction. Each phase required me to use my knowledge of management skills to effectively monitor and evaluate the learning process. The learning cycle project was a great experience that helped me to further develop my pedagogy.

Characteristics Of a Novice Teacher #7

The artifact I chose for this post is my workstations project created in EDUC 461 last semester. My group members and I decided that characteristic seven would fit this artifact the best because we really had to focus on not only the content we were developing the the pedagogy we were going to use to teach the content. The project included choosing a text and planning a 2 week literacy unit around the text. My project's theme was remarkable women throughout history. The pedagogy was also a big part of this project because we had to specify exactly what methods we were teaching by and the rational for doing this.