I truly enjoyed reading this article! All of the 7 habits are critical to emotional wellness. I have been learning about bits and pieces of these habits all year, it was refreshing to read about them together. My favourite was number 7: Maintain passion and playfulness. This tied in nicely with a peer’s inquiry presentation today. I like to believe that I have a good sense of humour and I try to bring that into the classroom as much as I can. It was easy doing it in a K/1 classroom but if I ever have an intermediate grade I would definitely take out the time to incorporate play into my lessons. Having fun with the curriculum content is an easy way to get all students engaged and learning without them even knowing that they are doing work! I also liked habit number 3: Ditch the easy caricature. It is human nature to categorize people based on their strengths or weaknesses, and it can be hard to stray away from that kind of thinking. Seeing people as fully developed thinkers is something that will come with practice but is VERY important to do to get to know students as a whole. Great article, I will be saving this one for sure.
Monthly Archives: July 2016
Philosophy of Education- Working Draft
Throughout the past 12 weeks I have changed so much from the student teacher I was before going into long practicum and I realize now that my philosophy is ever changing. Now I value the belief in creating a well balanced classroom based on respect, communication and cooperation. I will strive to ensure all my students are supported, engaged and feel valued. Building positive relationships and fostering a strong community is paramount to me. As a teacher I will be a role model to every student I meet so it is my goal to epitomize the good qualities that I want to see in them. Lastly, I still believe in making learning memorable is something I strive for because knowing that your students remember something they learned from you is beyond satisfying.
Exit slip July 14
One thing that I believe makes for really good teaching is taking that time to build relationships with your students and build a good class community. If you don’t take this time as a teacher before you start teaching any content, I do not think students will get the full experience of learning. Also, as hard as it may seem, a good teacher tries their best to spilt the time between students to assess and discuss their learning.
Good teaching is measured in the way students react to your lessons and the learning that you see happening throughout the year. If your students have improved in any way since the beginning of the year, academically or socially, you have taught them something!
The SEL presentations at the beginning of class are very helpful in providing me with some ideas for my future classrooms. It is a great way to build some activities to bring to a TOC class or to integrate into certain lessons. They all create a sense of community and relationship building between the students and the teacher, which I enjoy and hope to bring to my own classroom one day. I’ve also enjoyed listening to everyone’s mini inquiry ideas, you can really do inquiry projects in so many different ways! The MOA experience was eye-opening and I look forward to starting my own inquiry project with a field trip. Now that I have had experience working with my own class I feel as though I am finding so many interesting ideas to add to my teaching.