Essential Questions#
Our main priority as teachers is to provide a safe and effective learning environment for our students. This involves making sure the curriculum we make is student-centered, and create a learning environment where students are able to think critically, develop their own personal philosophy, and be challenged to succeed in both an academic setting, and life in general. In the below modules, I discuss my views on essential questions that a teacher must ask in order to provide this experience for their students.
Content#
What Have I learned about my content?
Over the course of my first semester teaching in a high school classroom, I taught biology and environmental science. Getting a degree in physics, it had been some time since I had been involved with these fields. Before teaching the subjects, it had been over six years since I took a class, or even reviewed biology. I have been following a lot of the politics that have been going on with environmental science over the last year, and doing individual research on environmental science to make sure I had the correct information. Because of this individual research, I had at least a small background in environmental science, but not nearly enough on one to teach it. Over the course of the first semester, I very quickly realized that I had retained a lot of the content from those classes back in high school, which gave me more confidence in the classroom as a teacher.
The classroom model that my host teacher and myself were using during my first semester was also very helpful in retrieving the content that I had stored in my mind. In this semester, we had two biology classes, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon after lunch. My host teacher would often be the primary teacher in the classroom, with me being a support in the morning, and then we would swap roles in the afternoon. This would allow me to first get reintroduced to the content from a teaching perspective, allow some time for personal review over lunch, and then have my turn to present the content in a similar fashion in the morning. This practice has been extremely helpful in strengthening my knowledge in biology, to the point of being able to teach it solo if needed. Over the course of my second semester of teaching biology, we will be able to move into a full co-teaching practice where we are both primary teachers in the classroom for both sections of biology, which will allow for more unique discussions and experiences with students.
When looking at teaching environmental science, my physics background and past experience of being a demonstration specialist became quite useful in multiple occasions, especially when we were discussing alternative energies and fuels. Because of my background, I was able to go in depth on how different forms of renewable energy sources generate electricity, and help debunk a lot of misconceptions about some of the energy sources. The largest source of misconceptions was nuclear power, where there is a social stigma that follows it for no good reason. The largest issue that people have with nuclear energy is the radiation that it gives off, but to be able to address the radiation as a form of light, since it is on the electromagnetic spectrum, and that we are bombarded with radiation literally every second of every day helped relieve that stigma from the classroom. Since our primary way of getting electricity today is by burning some sort of fuel that generates steam which spins a turbine, I was able to make a small steam turbine using a soda can that was able to show this process clearly, and brought a practice that is very important to our way of life into the classroom. Due to my independent research in the field, I was able to acquire the different subjects inside of environmental science much more efficiently. There is also a lot of overlap between environmental science and biology, so this allowed me to better understand the biology concepts a lot faster than I would have without the environmental science class.
What do I still need to know about my content?
Since I am getting certified in broad-field science, I need to be competent in all of the major fields of science that are taught in secondary schools. This includes physics, biology, chemistry, and and earth systems. After my first semester of teaching, and my prior experiences, I feel confident in all of these fields except for chemistry, which I have not had to take since I was in the tenth grade of high school. While I do have general knowledge of chemistry as it was briefly mentioned throughout my undergraduate degree program, I am not ready to teach it. Since there is a chemistry teacher next door to my host teacher, I am hoping I will be able to take a similar approach to reviewing chemistry as I did for biology. This would entail sitting in on some chemistry classes throughout the semester, and being a assistant teacher in those classes. This would allow me to interact with both the students and the content, which would help me develop a new perspective of the field of chemistry, which would be from the perspective of a teacher. From this experience, I should be able to become proficient in chemistry to the point where I would be comfortable teaching the subject.
Instructional Practice#
What have I learned about instructional practice?
When a teacher is in a classroom, there is a lot that a teacher needs to be aware of, not only about what they are teaching the content, but also the way that they are being portrayed by the students, if the students are understanding and comprehending the information, potential questions or responses students might have to a lesson, and the list goes on. After a lot of time and practice, an effective teacher can start to develop skills to address the majority of the possible events and views that could occur in a classroom. Over the course of my first semester in a high school classroom as a teacher, I have started to develop these skills, and am starting to better understand how to help students in the classroom.
Looking into specific instructional practices used by teachers, one of the most important ones in getting the students engaged with their learning. The best way that I have found to keep students engaged with their learning is developing the joy of discovery in them. If students have this want to know more, the job of keeping students engaged with a lesson becomes much easier. The students want to ask questions and gain more knowledge on the subject. (Brownell, n.d.) This job becomes even easier when the teacher has this same passion to know more.
Luckily for me, the joy of discovery was implanted in me when I was very young, so I have been trying to learn everything I can about anything as long as I can remember. This means that I can make a lot of random, but interesting connections to what is going on in the classroom at that time. One of my favorite memories from my first semester of teaching and we were talking about air pollution in environmental science. We were discussing how catalytic converters (right) in cars take a lot of the bad chemicals in the exhaust and trap them so they do not go into the atmosphere. I brought up the fact that we use rare earth metals, such as platinum to work as a reaction catalyst to cause nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide and other hyro-carbons to convert into carbon-dioxide, nitrogen, and water. A student mentioned that he really enjoyed the random science tangents that I go on, and another student chimed in stating that they now see how different sciences are related, and makes them more interesting. This brings up another unique paradigm in a lot of schools, where the classrooms are completely separate entities, and no not interact with each other. The term that is often used for this school model is “Egg Crate Classrooms,” where classes just get stacked up on each other, the teacher is responsible to knowing their specific content, and nothing else. (West, 2013) This creates a large disconnect between subjects, so content does not get combined with other subjects, where the opposite should be occurring if we want to move towards content mastery. I like to think that I am helping combine class content with my small tangents, as evidence from my students’ reactions to the links between different subjects, but this is only the beginning. As I get more comfortable with managing an entire unit, instead of just doing small tangents, I might be able to introduce a lab or inquiry activity that will allow the students to become physically engaged with multiple different school subjects at once, which will help remove that disconnect between subjects.
Another very important practice for teachers in the classroom is attacking and removing misconceptions in their students’ knowledge. This practice is so important, that the Master’s degree program in teaching at Piedmont College has a class dedicated to developing strategies to address misconceptions in the classroom. These strategies include methods like tutorial based learning, where the students start out trying to solve a problem with their misconception, and then realizing that their misconception does not work to solve the problem. The students then have to change their own way of thinking and strategies to solve the problem, and intern, removing the misconception from their mind and replacing it with proper knowledge. This method works very well for physical concepts, like analyzing Newton’s laws, but is more tricky for more abstract ideas, like understanding how light is characterized. This came up in my fist semester of teaching in both biology and environmental science, where we were discussing radiation. The almost immediate reaction by many student was along the idea that all radiation is bad. Radiation is what causes superheros to get powers, and causes three-eyed fish in our drinking water. This is not necessarily the case, in fact, everything on earth gets bombarded with massive amounts of radiation every second of every day. Not surprisingly, students put on a worried expression when this fact was mentioned, which told me that there was a misconception held by a large portion of the classes that did not understand what radiation is. Radiation, at the core definition, is light. Another phrase for light is electromagnetic radiation, which is defined on the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. Looking at a diagram of the EM spectrum on the screen in the classroom, I pointed out that there are different sections of the spectrum, and the radiation that people think about when they hear the word “radiation” is a small section of the EM spectrum known as gamma radiation. Gamma radiation is light with an extremely high frequency, and very small wavelength. Gamma radiation has the ability to cause damage to organic matter such as humans, but so does other forms of radiation. At this point, I asked students to think of other times they have heard about radiation, and a student brought up their microwave in their kitchen. This is absolutely true, we use microwave radiation to heat food, and we can also use it for digital communication, like with our cell phones. Another student brought up infrared radiation, which is quite simply, heat. Everything that we feel to be warm is emitting infrared radiation. Another student in the room, who was looking a little concerned at the time, brought up the smallest portion of the EM spectrum, visible light. Yes, visible light is a form of radiation, and if we didn’t have it, we could not see. Throughout this discussion, I could tell that students were starting to better understand that radiation is a very necessary part of life, and the “issues” with radiation are often blown out of proportion due to a very large portion of our world having this misconception about radiation. (Watts, 2015) Thanks to this discussion, students had a better understanding on how scientists characterize and use light, which was evident from every student passing an assessment on radiation in their respective classes.
What do I still need to know about Instructional Practices?
One of the largest issues that I am still having is acquiring understanding from all of my students. I have been told by many teachers that I will not be able to teach every student that walks through my door, and the sooner that I can understand that, the better. While I understand where the teacher is coming from, where there are students that will either refuse to learn, or they are unable to learn in a similar fashion as other students, and they will not be able to succeed in academic settings. This to me sounds like the teacher is saying that the student is failing the system, but I would argue that it is the system that is failing the student. When I was in high school, I fell into the later category of not learning effectively from the standard school system, but I had teachers that found ways to help me better understand what they were teaching, and I will be forever grateful for those experiences with those teachers, because that is what made me want to be a teacher. I want to know how I can better accommodate for as many students as possible. This does not mean differentiating for every student individually, which I think is the stigma that some teachers have, but finding ways to help a large groups of students learning effectively. I get the feeling that this skill will come with time and experience, and getting to work with experienced teachers for a full year before going off on my own should help build this skill faster.
Brownell, C. (n.d.). Episode 5 | Mathematics, Happyness, and the Joy of Discovery | AIMS Center Blog. Retrieved December 3, 2017, from https://www.aimsedu.org/2016/09/22/episode-5-mathematics-happyness-and-the-joy-of-discovery/
Watts, G. (2015, July 14). Why Are We So Afraid Of Radiation? Retrieved from http://digg.com/2015/how-dangerous-is-radiation
West, D. (2013, April 18). Time to Abandon the Egg Crate Approach to Education. Retrieved December 3, 2017, from http://educationnext.org/time-to-abandon-the-egg-crate-approach-to-education/
Responsibilities of a Professional Educator#
What have I learned about the responsibilities of a professional educator?
In the United States, pondering the idea of a “professional educator” is a difficult topic to discuss, as many people in today’s society,including many teachers, do not see teaching as a profession, but simply an occupation. (Newland, 2012) The main reason for this difference in opinion is because teaching does not have the same social status as a doctor, lawyer, or engineer to name a few. There is a famous quote from George Bernard Shaw that goes along the lines of “He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches.” This quote comes from a stigma of teachers that we are teaching because we could not get a job in our respective fields. Since we are not pursuing a job in our respective fields, our training in our fields are not needed to teach. When simply looking at the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship, through which I am funded to obtain my teaching degree, this program is specifically directed towards those with professional experience in STEM fields so we can bring our knowledge and experiences into our classroom. This seems to completely contradict the quote, since we have all had experience in our field, and are now choosing to go into teaching. Because of this, I think the phrase “He who can, does; He who did, teaches” is more appropriate. Just imagine if every single teacher had some sort of experience in their field, and the reason they went into teaching is because they felt so passionate about their work that they wanted to share it with as many people as possible, and help make the future generations productive members of our society. To me, this would be a successful society, where it is seen as a blessing to be a teacher, not a burden, and people choose to help the next generation become more successful, not doing so because it is thought to be their only way to make money.
Regardless if one believes that teaching is a profession or not, it cannot be argued that teachers have a lot of responsibilities that many individuals do not think of. Looking at the webpage of the Association of American Educators, (AAE) the Code of ethics covers a wide range of how teachers should act with the students, their peers, their content and practices, and even in their local community. (Thiyagu, n.d.) Not many professionals in our society that have to be worried about how they act outside of their building of employment at risk of losing their job. We see on the news all the time where a teacher used social media poorly, or a parent does not like the teacher’s view on a topic, and the teacher was either forced to resign, or fired. As teachers, we are held to a very high social and moral standard in our society, and it is sometimes considered that teachers need to please everyone, and if they do not, they are no longer a teacher. If we look at a school as a business, a teacher would be salesman to the students, a customer services representative to the parents, a planner for their lessons, and a human resources representative for the entire community. This does not even cover the continuous grading, or include that we are selling a new product to same people every day, and we need to make the new product just as entertaining and useful than the last.
On top of being a good salesman, teachers are people that need to be trusted by the entire community. Students that come to school need to feel safe, and ready to learn. Students are often willing to open up to a teacher about what is going on in their life, and it is up to the teacher to be an individual that can listen, and respond as necessary. Teachers are what are known as mandatory reporters, where if they are told anything that can pose harm to a student, a member of a student’s family, or is simply thought to be against the general well-being of a student, it is up to the teacher to report the occurrence to their superiors. This is a heavy weight to wear, especially with how much goes on in a student’s life. While I have not had direct experience of this in a classroom setting, I was a resident assistant and housing employee at Michigan Technological University for three years, where I was also a mandatory reporter for my residents. People open up to individuals in these positions, just as students do for teachers, because they know that they can be trusted, and it is imperative that those in these positions know how to listen and respond appropriately to these situations. Evidence of this can be found in the post where I discuss the Adolescent Learner.
What do I need to learn?
As a professional educator, there is still a lot that I need to learn about making sure I am an open and accepting individual, which will come with time. Before I entered this program, I was very introverted in how I dealt with people, and I still am to an extent. I had a very difficult time putting myself into someone else’s shoes, and trying to understand the daily struggles that they might have. I feel that I have improved on these skills a lot, just over the last semester in the schools, but I still have a long ways to go. The variety of people, with different backgrounds and experiences just in the cohort of fellows has been extremely helpful. As I learn how to better interact with students, and better understand how I will be able to help them.
Goldstein, D. (2015). The teacher wars: a history of America’s most embattled profession . New York: Anchor Books.
James H. Stronge. (n.d.). Section II: Teacher Responsibilities and Teacher Behaviors. Retrieved December 3, 2017, from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/105156/chapters/Section-II@-Teacher-Responsibilities-and-Teacher-Behaviors.aspx
JOHN MERROW. (2015, June 19). Is Teaching a Profession, an Occupation, a Calling, or a Job? | Taking Note. Retrieved December 3, 2017, from http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=7595
Newland, A. (2012, July 31). Is teaching a profession? Discuss. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2012/jul/31/is-teaching-a- profession
Noddings, N. (1998). Educating for intelligent belief or unbelief. New York: Teachers College Press.
Thiyagu, K. (n.d.). Chapter-2: Professional Preparation of Teachers. TEACHER EDUCATION, 39.
The Adolescent Learner#
What have I learned about the adolescent learner?
There is a lot that goes on in a high school student’s life these days. Thanks to technology, students are continually connected to their peers and families, along with the largest database of information to ever exist to human-kind. Due to the assimilation of technology, social constructs such as dating and spending time with friends, even learning new information has completely changed. It is like people today have two personalities, one in person, and one online, and this holds true for the students in our schools more than anyone. Outside of technology, our students also hold jobs, and for some students, that job is can be taking care of their siblings, or even their own children, or helping out in their family business. I have a lot of respect for these students, for them to stay engaged with school while taking on main parts of an adult life is no easy task.
In my classrooms so far, I have interacted with students that were put back in foster care the night before, or lost a family member, or any other issue that might be going on at home. One student that I am quite close with now did not turn in any assignment for over a week. When I asked why, he mentioned that he has been busy every day for the last week because a family member was in the hospital, and he needed to help out on the family farm so his family could make ends meet, along with go to school. In this situation, I knew that there was no way that I was going to convince this student that their homework was more important than his family, and the best that I could do was tell the student to turn in the homework when they can, and we will go from there. The student shook my hand, and thanked me for understanding.
While discussing what it means to be a professional educator, I mention that a large part of a teacher’s job, whether it is in the job description or not, is being someone that the students can talk to about life, because there is a possibility there is no one else that the student feels comfortable talking to. While it is not the responsibility of the teacher to take action on what the student is telling them, it is the teacher’s responsibility to make sure that the right people are aware of what is happening. From my experiences both as a teacher, and as a resident assistant at a university, I think students, as individuals, just need someone sometimes outside of their family or close friends who can listen without bias, who can try to understand, and help them in any way possible. Adolescence is a roller-coaster, and sometimes, a teacher can be the brakes on the cart.
When looking at the instructional practices of a teacher, in joint with the content, it is often difficult for a student to understand how this information will be any use to them in the future. This is especially an issue in the biology class that I am assisting in teaching in my first semester. I honestly don’t know when they will use the definition of a lysosome next, or if they will use a Punnet Square ever again. It is up to us as educators to make the time in the classroom not just about learning content, but also about the soft skills that they acquire, and WILL use for the rest of their life. These skills go anywhere from teamwork, to giving a presentation, or even just writing a complete sentence. Critical thinking needs to be addressed more often as well. With the amount of information on the internet, there is bound to be information that is either misleading, or flat out wrong. Students need to be able to analyze and assess everything that they read or do on the internet, and in their offline life. Today’s students are tomorrow’s doctors, engineers, politicians, and teachers. If these individuals do not develop the critical thinking skills needed to be an effective member of our society, there will be nothing left of our society to assess.
What do I need to learn?
I will never stop learning about the adolescent learner, since every year, and even every semester, the students and the challenges with those students will change. Every day, teachers are addressed with new challenges, some that they may have never thought of. While it could be assumed that these experiences would help address the next, every student, every adolescent learner, every individual, is different and will need to be addressed differently. It takes time to develop these skills, but it is well worth it. The best tool that a teacher has in these situations is their mind, and their own critical thinking skills. Being able to use these skills to help a student may even save that student’s life, and all it takes is an open mind and an ear to listen.