Chapter 4c: pp. 140-160

Tasha Stancin and My Section.

Chapter 5a: pp. 163-184

This section of the book really focusses on curriculum in the classroom. One of my main concerns as a future teacher is creating all the lesson plans and planning the curriculum (for the school year, units, and daily lessons). While reading this section it made me realize that I don't have to plan all on my own. Planning doesn't have to be done on your own or from scratch. I hope that when I am a teacher I have the opportunity to work in a team or collaborative group when planning the curriculum. As the famous quote goes, "two minds are better than one," I believe that working with multiple teachers would allow for great ideas of curriculum planning to develop and allow for the best instruction to be provided to our students. 

Chapter 4a: pp. 109-121

During this section of the book, I learned a lot about classroom management and planning. Personally, I feel that classroom management is the hardest part of being a teacher. Trying to make sure your classroom is in control and giving you respect is somewhat difficult as a first time teacher. It is the area which I am most concerned about. Specifically in this section, I learned that creating procedures and consquences from the very beginning of the school year will help tremendously to create a supportive and constructive classroom.

Chapter 4b: pp. 121-140

In this section of the book I found the "First Day" information to be extremely helpful, especially as a future teacher. I took many notes on this and will definitely use this information on my first day. I will be sure to greet my students, have student seating assigned previously to their arrival, explore course content with the class, identify procedures and expected behavior, and create a dismissal system. All of these components are important to have a successful first day. Therefore, I plan on implementing them on my first day as a teacher to give the best encouraging and positive environment from the start.

Chapter 2a: pp. 27 - 56

During this section, I learned that as a teacher you have to be a reflective decision maker. As a reflective decision maker, the teacher must analyze and judge the decisions that they made during their teaching. This is especially important so that the teacher knows what they can do differently next time they teach the lesson. Feedback (from parents/ guardians, students, student grades, and observations) can be a great way to reflect on the lesson taught. I also gained more knowledge about the student rights, rights against discrimination, and teacher liability and insurance. Which all are extremely important to be aware of as a educator. In my future classroom, I hope to use this information that I have learned to help me better understand that I need to reflect on my lessons in order to grow and become a more successful teacher. 

Chapter 2b: pp. 57 - 78

This section mainly focused on building instructional competencies as a teacher and great tools to use for instruction in the classroom. All of the tools are available to help enhance student learning. I was especially intrigued by the section about technology malfunctions. I realized that as a teacher you need to have a "plan B" at all times. Technology or other outside factors could fail and as a teacher you need to be ready to think quick and change your instructional plan. As a future teacher, I will be implementing several of these tools in my classroom to help my students in their learning process. Today students/children are so emerged in technology in their everyday lives. Bringing this into the classroom can get students more motivated and creative during their learning process. 

Chapter 3

This chapter focused on two particular teaching strategies, thinking and questioning. Thinking is the key to meaningful learning. Thinking can be taught and learned in a variety of ways, one being the facilitating of a teacher by questioning. Questioning is a instructional strategy to use because it prompts meaningful teaching, communication, learning, and real-world problem solving. I think that questioning is a very important strategy. When working in my observation classrooms, I would continuously ask my students questions to gain knowledge of their thinking process and help them develop more of their thoughts and ideas. In my future as a teacher, I will question my students (appropriately) to help them gain more knowledge. I will do this by using the many different types of questioning (cueing questioning, focus questions, divergent-thinking questioning, ect.).