Week Ten

This week as we dive back into school, I have gained so many new experiences. On Tuesday, we had duty free lunch at Washington and it was very eye opening since I haven't been inside an elementary lunchroom since I was in 5th grade! I really enjoyed being able to help the teachers at the school though because they have such a short lunch time every day. Every teacher I saw was so grateful and excited to have a day off and it made me feel so great.

We have also started our edTPA boot camp this week and it has been so helpful. I finally feel more confident when working on my lesson plans. One thing that really stuck out to me that I don't think I've realized before this point is that all the tasks that we are working on; planning, instruction, and assessment, are not only centered around student learning, but it is also preparing us to be the best teachers that we can be. As someone who is planning on getting their National Board Certification, I am grateful for the opportunity to get prepared for that process. I feel that I can connect what I am learning this week to standard 5 of NCTCS in that teachers link professional growth to their professional goals. What I am learning now can help me throughout my career to be a better and more student-centered teacher.

Along with edTPA, Washington, and all of my education classes, I am also preparing for my clinical experience. When meeting with my CE, we decided to work with the environment concept since Earth Day is coming up. While looking at activities for my students, I found a great resource for kids to use. Kids.gov is a neat website that has all sorts of topics for students, many which relate to social studies such as history and government. Students can watch videos, play games, and learn from online lessons. I thought this was really neat because standard 4 of the NCTCS states that teachers use a variety of instructional methods in order to teach their students. Kids.gov provides students with so many different educational opportunities. There are infographics that they can look at, maps they can study, and even links to other reputable educational websites. I know as a future teacher, in my classroom I want to be able to give my students different ways of learning information in order to make learning more enjoyable for my students. Instead of just having my students listen to me tell them information all day, I want to give them the opportunity to learn on their own and have different resources.