Teacher Identity

I am easily inspired by the typical teacher movies. The Ron Clark Story is one of these movies I find motivation from. In this particular clip Ron shows many different roles a teacher needs to take on. Not only does a teacher need to teach the students the content, but they need to make sure they communicate their expectations of the students and that they believe in the students. Ron also conferences individually with students, like he is a mentor to them. We also see him caring for the students even outside of the school environment. This shows that a teacher does have to wear many hats; they are not just barers of knowledge.
The students in this clip are open and comfortable with the teacher it seems, as they are sharing their feelings with him. They all seemed to have internalized the belief that they are second class citizens and cannot perform. The teachers job was to address this and make them believe. The students also perform their role as learners when they take their standardized test.

Lattice Multiplication Using Gagne's Events of Instruction

The Google Doc's did not like my illustrations much, so I had to save it as a PDF, but then I could not get an embed code, so above is my word document that got skewed, but here is the address to my PDF Google Doc that has my illustrations.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B21aWNWogr48YWFjZDNmZWEtMWQzZC00NzliLWJmOGItZDk4YzQ0OGI0OTUy&hl=en_US

Thanks,

Brooke

ADDIE

Educational Philosophy

Every student can be successful

Each student is unique. They come from all different backgrounds and have a variety of learning styles. I believe it is the teacher's job to find out where each child’s strengths lie and help the child use these interests or skills to be successful in school. Helping the students see the relevance of the content to their lives is also key to them being successful. Students are much more likely to engage in material they see as relevant to them. It is also important for the teacher to truly believe that every student can be successful and to have and convey high expectations of each student, because it's more likely they will succeed if someone is there to encourage them and believe in them. The teacher is responsible to have high expectations for students regardless of background, race, gender, sexuality, etc, because no student has a predetermined destiny.

The teacher should create a safe, productive learning environment for the students

In order to have a productive learning environment the students need to feel physically and intellectually safe. To ensure they feel physically safe the teacher should have a very structured classroom management system. In order to achieve this they need to have a variety of strategies that are proven to work and have established routines in the classroom. To build an intellectually safe environment the teacher needs to build a classroom community. The classroom community will help students be respectful of each other and feel like they belong in the classroom, so they will be more likely to take risks with their learning.

The teacher needs to be flexible and reflective

It is very important for a teacher to continually reflect on his/her teaching to evaluate what went well and what they could do better next time. This way they continuously improve. Teaching is also not a static profession. There is constantly new research coming out on ways to improve the practice. It is the teachers responsibility to always try to better their practice by attending professional developments, doing academic readings, and collaborating with their colleagues. This includes staying up to do date on technology and using it in the classroom to engage the students and enhance lessons. A teacher also needs to be flexible. Many unexpected events happen and the teacher needs to be able to adapt and have a Plan B, so that students do not miss out on learning time.

Education is an agent for social justice.

I believe it is very difficult for students to try and compete in society if they do not get a proper education. Many youth are denied an equal education, because of their location or background. As a teacher it is your job to act as an agent of change and get EVERY student the proper education, so they have the opportunity to thrive in society. This means giving them the content, social skills, inspiration, motivation, and citizenship in order to get to college and further themselves.

The first one.

:-)