FIRST PROFESSIONAL SEMINAR
November 2021
ARTIFACTS
pieces that witness my growth and development as a teacher
SELF-REFLECTION
Week 2
This is the first self-reflection I had to write for my FE1. My supervisor asked me to write about what I had learned, what I appreciated, and what I had found difficult during the second week of the Field Experience.
This artifact is important as it represents the writings related to my first contacts with the school and classroom environments and how I felt about each of them.
This FE1 showed me reality; it showed me a profession that is full of challenges. However, it also showed me that I want to be one of these resourceful people who will help children through their own challenges.
For days harder than others, I'll have this reflection to turn to, in order to remember myself of all the passion I have for this vocation.
KEY QUOTE
Many students, including myself, constantly work for perfection rather than progress. But what is perfection? Can it really be achieved? During my First Field Experience I realized how anxious students get, or how much pressure parents put on their children to have 'good grades'. I believe that, as teachers, we should prepare our students for life. Can we really find perfection in life?As teachers, our role should be to offer children the tools to improve.We should make 'progress' their goal rather than 'perfection' because perfection is only an excuse to stop working.
THE ICE-BREAKERS
Kindergarten - Week 1
I chose the picture of me reading because it was the first time I had to prepare an activity and present it to the class. I had all my post-its ready, in my book, filled with questions I could ask the students to make the activity more interactive. I find this image significant for my school journey considering it is my first preparation. The fireplace was a collective arts project where children came and glued their brick on the brown paper. I chose this image because, during this project, I worked with students and it is together that we got to a wonderful result. I think this image is powerful and represents that anything can be achieved if a student and a teacher work together.#Teamwork makes the dreamwork!!
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
*Sarah Ward - Strategies for Improving Executive Function Skills
*Additio App
*ClassDojo
*Adrienne Gear - The Reading Power Strategies
Resources I had the opportunity to explore during my first field experience.
RESOURCEFUL APPS
Perfect for class management!
ClassDojo is a free app that facilitates communication between teachers and parents by having instant messaging. Teachers may also share photos, videos or announcements and post positive comments and feedback to the class or to a specific student.
Additio is a free app where teachers may file grades and results to tests. This makes it easier for the teacher to gather students' grades when it comes to report-cards. It is amazingly organized.
RESOURCEFUL PEOPLE - BOOKS
Best discoveries of my stage!
Sarah Ward organizes seminars and writes books about ways to improve cognitive and executive function skills. Her works offers solutions to help teachers with children who may have Attention Deficit Disorder, Verbal Learning Disabilities, Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Other Social-Cognitive Learning Disabilities, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Acquired Brain Injury. She is the key to understanding a special needs student and a 'must' to teaching resources.
Adrienne Gear is another great resource. She wrote books which include the most important strategies when it comes to learning and teaching a language. Each books covers a different strategy and a different method (reading, speaking or writing), discusses how it should be applied in a classroom and offers all-made activities ready to be photocopied and distributed!
TEACHING AND LEARNING
Formative Evaluation Method
Another way of assessing competencies, but without numeral grades!! It is easy for the student and the parent to understand that a green sticker means "I understand well"; a yellow sticker means "there are still some things I need to work on"; and a red sticker means "I hardly understand". It is very visual and does not penalize careless mistakes.
A great way to vary the evaluation methods and put some smiles on students' papers, as well as their faces!