Week 2...There is so much to reflect on this week! We did our first Twitter chat and that was definitely an experience! One thing that stood out to me in the Twitter chat was the question " When hear the question “Do you want to be great?” do you have trouble answering it? Why or why not?" This really made me think and reflect on my teaching and what I think about my goals. I answered, "I definitely want to be great. I think that sometimes I am scared to fail though, so I stick to what is safe... :/" I think this comes from being a fairly new teacher and being unsure of myself.
I'm thinking of my current teaching situation. The firs two years I taught with 6 students on my caseload who had very high needs. I mostly worked on behavior and would push-in to the classrooms. This year, I have 11 (going on 13) students on my caseload. Many of them only need help in reading/writing/math. I feel like I am in my first year again. When I think of being a great teacher, it feels like such a far far thing away. Part of me feels like I can hardly make an impact in these sweet little students that I have. The reading Burgess's text, part 3 talked more about being great. He talked about how we need a mighty purpose in teaching to not get dragged down by the exterior pressures. I read Jim's post and he talked about the statistics show how dissatisfied teachers are. He then went to share how we need to be driven from within because it likely will not come from outside the classroom. I furthered Jim's post by adding an article in my comment about reasons why teachers stay. One part that resounded with me is that your co-teachers attitudes about wanting to be there make you want to stay. I can be that for someone else!! Natalie shared about being excited to teach but the struggles that go into it, like time. She talked about how we can better ourselves through professional development and trying to focus on what we are passionate about. Natalie and I had a conversation about PD and how to use the district initiated days that may not be exactly what you were wanting or something that doesn't directly relate to you. We came up with having a proactive mindset and trying to take away something to use in our classrooms. Jule and Josie both wrote about how teachers can be dissatisfied when they get stagnant and aren't trying to better themselves anymore. I found an article from edutopia that talked about teacher needs in different parts of his or her career. I think this is important for others to know and how they can help those teachers no matter where they are in their teaching experience. This week I am really excited to take what I have learned and put it into my teaching. I have already put work into my practice to try to become a more effective teacher. I switched around my academic time so that I can focus more on areas in reading and writing that pertain to each students specific needs. I also created time for a math group where I can work with students on their specific goals. These small groups have been an area of struggle for me this whole year. Taking the time to think about how to be effective and find the resources and make time for the students. I'm sure this will be an ongoing conversation within my blog posts for the semester! MENTOR PROJECT: I've found a mentee for the technology mentoring project. There is a student at my school who has very low language and accuracy in body movements. They have tried to use proloquo to go with this student, but she is too young. What they have found is a device called the Dynavox. It is in the form of a tablet and has a communication system on it. There are categories for the student to choose from and then lists of questions, statements, positive comments, and negative comments. The student got this device on Wednesday. I fell into this project by asking another special education teacher at my school if she needed help learning any technology. She talked about the Dynavox instantly. I told her that I would help and she was very grateful. The person I am actually mentoring, however, is the speech language pathologist-assistant. She is setting up the Dynavox for the student and I am going to help with the process. I am also going to help her implement the device and have conversations with her to talk about what that will look like.
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AuthorAndrea Colvin Archives
April 2017
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