MAT 671

Mat 671

Hi my name is Carrie and I would describe myself as a very energetic teacher. I feel it is extremely important to be passionate about teaching students, as a teacher you must truly love what you do and want to make a difference in your student’s lives.  I work to create a classroom environment that is very positive and interactive. I get to know all of my students; I learn what interests them and what their learning styles are. I look for a variety of learning opportunities throughout the content areas. You can learn about science, math, and ELA all while doing one lesson. Integrating the content area throughout the day. I do agree that making adaptations and modifications to lesson are beneficial to meet the needs of all learners. However, I feel that creating a lesson that is structured to meet the needs of all learners at the same time is more beneficial to increase learning among all the students at he same time. This way no one feels singled out. Working in cooperative groups is and effective way to achieve this and or letting the students/ class guide to direction of the lesson. It is all about finding a balance and setting a standard for success to be high. I believe that it is important to have a deep bag of instructional tricks and strategies in which to pull from when planning and instructing a lesson. Being reflective and flexible during a lesson to meet the needs of the learners also goes a long way. I work to create instruction that is authentic to student’s lives, engaging, and interesting to students. Getting them “hooked” in to a lesson, creating intrigue and questioning. Making them an active participant in their learning. That combined with creating a classroom community in which they feel safe to take risks, students are able to push their knowledge and learning beyond their zone of proximity and work towards a higher level of understanding of the content.

       I feel my personality affects my students in a very positive way. I am a very caring, passionate, organized, dependable person. I feel my students thrive when confronted with this type of personality. They know I genuinely care about their well being and lives. I ask questions and have conversations about things they do outside of school. When I ask them about something personal they experienced in their lives it goes a long way. It shows that I listen to them when they talk and that I am interested in their life. My students know that I am dependable; if I say I am going to do something I do it. This works to build trust in our relationship. I am extremely organized and well prepared. I feel that it leads to a smooth, less chaotic learning environment. My passion for learning and teaching is contagious. If you as a teacher are passionate about what you are teaching you can create a passion in your students. It is easy to get them excited about the most boring topic if you are passionate about it. Overall it works both ways, I exhibit the qualities I feel are important to have in a learning environment. I can’t expect my students to have a quality that I myself don’t exhibit to them on a daily basis.

I am a visual/ verbal learner, that learns best by experiencing the learning. My preferred learning style affects my teaching by an increase amount of lessons that include visual, verbal, and hands on experiences. I feel this increases my students' abilities to be successful. I have primarily worked with younger students whose language development is still being developed. By using a lot of visual, verbal, and hands on activities I feel their success increases versus having them complete worksheets and being lectured to.