This quarter has been one of the most challenging and busy quarters of my college career, but now that it is over I am glad that I decided to take this class. I feel much more prepared for future education classes, applying for MIT programs, and eventually completing the edTPA.
This quarter was the first time I had ever even heard of the edTPA, so creating the lesson plans for my mini-lesson and unit plan turned out to be a challenge. I spent at least two hours working on the first lesson plan I created this quarter and was blown away by how much thought needs to go into each one. I am glad I had the opportunity to present my mini-lesson though because it was the first time I went into a presentation with the mindset of a teacher. Instead of focusing on proving my own knowledge to my audience, I had to ensure that they were understanding what I was teaching. It was less about jamming in as much content as possible and more about assessing my audience’s—or students’—knowledge. The mini lesson also forced me to consider ways to make my teaching engaging; I have always struggled with that part of presentations, but I found myself looking into different ways I could keep students interested in the lesson. I landed on using the Kahoot quiz for my formative assessment because it can assess the students’ learning in a game-like way.
The unit-plan was by far the most time-consuming project I have ever completed during my college career, but after finishing it, I am glad that I did it. My unit-plan went through several revisions because of how much consideration had to go into CCSS, time constraints, effective assessments, and selecting the best texts to support my unit objectives. The first few lesson plans took me a ridiculous amount of time to finish because I did not know what I was doing when I began them, but after getting through the first week of lesson plans, I was able to bust the remaining ones out in 30-40 minutes each. They became easier as I got into the mindset of considering CCSSs, assessment, and lesson connections throughout the entirety of my planning.
I liked having the opportunity to listen to my classmates’ book talks and learn about new books and ways to implement old and new books into lessons. After I had chosen my text, I realized I probably wouldn’t be able to teach it in most secondary schools. While I would love to be able to, there were too many inappropriate parts in it. This assignment forced me to think about how I can teach sensitive subjects, such as the ones that appear in Little Bee, in a way that would be allowed in a secondary school.
I found the readings in this class to be very helpful. While I liked all of the theory articles we read, I enjoyed the article “Discussion as a way of Teaching” the most because it gave suggestions for how to properly use discussion in the classroom in a way that benefits all students, not just the ones that feel comfortable speaking in front of the class. I have found that I learn most from seminar classes and I think they are the most useful for teaching English. This reading provided me with strategies for facilitating that classroom environment effectively.
Both Kelly Gallagher’s Readicide and Cris Tovani’s I Read It, But I Don’t Get It have given me a lot to think about as a future English teacher. Both of them discussed a spectrum of literacy issues from struggles individual students face to issues that have affected our country as a whole. When I read Gallagher’s book, I felt it acted as call to action more than anything. After reading it, I wanted to figure out ways that I could ensure my future students wouldn’t become victims of ‘readicide.’ Tovani’s book provided a lot of strategies for helping students improve their reading comprehension, many of which I want to implement into my own classroom someday.
My participation in this course has helped me gain confidence in myself as a future teacher; it helped me change my mindset from “how can I be a good student?” to “how can I be a good teacher?” I found myself using strategies learned from you, the readings, and my classmates to help me in my other classes this quarter. This class also made me think about teaching English in terms of helping students meet standards, not simply teaching the content. That was the hardest change for me because I wanted to be able to spend more time teaching literature rather than using literature to supplement progression toward CCSS. The most important thing I have gained from this class is my constant questioning of “Why am I doing this?” while making lessons. I have begun thinking more about the relevance of everything I want to do as a teacher, something I now realize that I did not put enough consideration into before this class. This class has given me a lot to think about as a future teacher and helped me to discover who I want to be as a future teacher.
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