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Mitzi Martinez Pena

Elementary Education

10/06/2017

Submission II

Introduction:

As a teacher candidate, I can confidently say that I have received enough education to

guide me through my teaching career. Pittsburg State University’s college of education has given

me the means of knowledge and the opportunity to apply that knowledge gained in the field.

Also by working with students with different needs and backgrounds they have shown me that I

can improve every day. The college of education has guided my thinking in understanding that

an effective teacher embraces their qualities but never stops working on being successful and

pushes for that growth mindset. In this essay, I will explain my qualities as teacher candidate and

areas of growth and how I can improve these areas.

The Learner and Learning

Throughout my teaching experience, one of the key ideas is understanding the student’s

needs. A strength that cultivates my learning experience is understanding diversity and student

motivation. I am culturally aware that in order for students to focus in the classroom, they need

to fulfill their basic needs. In developmental psychology and later reinforced in Educational

Psychology, Maslow's Hierarchy of needs states that basic, psychological and self-fulfillment

needs must be met in order for students to reach their full potential. During my internship, I had

the opportunity to apply that knowledge with a student who lacked the motivation. After weeks

of having a negative attitude, I intervened in a simple way that redirected this students thinking.
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We talked about the troubles he was going through at home, what he could do to change his

behavior and ways that he could incorporate his love of comics (which he used as a distraction)

with school subjects, such as math, science and ELA. I let him decide on what he could do to

change his attitude, motivated him to work hard in order to achieve his goals, and I can

confidently say that this was what he needed. He had the option of being in charge of his own

learning. As a result, these past couple of weeks have been completely different in terms of his

attitude and motivation as well as where he needs to be at emotionally and I know that he is

ready to make his learning meaningful.

Classroom environment is what sets the baseline through the whole school year. After

studying Harry K. Wong's, “The First Days of School” in my classroom management class, I

have understood that it is important to set high expectation in which one is respectful and

respected. Throughout my teaching practicum, I have not had the opportunity to establish my

own rules and regulations but along with this book I have picked up things from my classroom

observations during my clinical, internship, Para Educator work study, and transfer courses at

other institutions. I am confident that I will be able to apply the things learned from other

teachers and course work and apply it in my own classroom. During my internship now, I strive

to take an initiative when it comes to classroom management in order to demonstrate structure,

learned behavior and reinforcers to keep students from misbehaving but rather concentrated in

learning. Also, I have applied my knowledge of meaningful praise, avoiding “no” or “can’t”

statements in a way that creates a positive classroom environment where down time,

disturbances and negative behavior is replaced with structure and meaningful procedures.

Considering my love for learning and education, I can humbly say that my enthusiasm for

working with children reflects in their ability to learn. It is part of my personality to show
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enthusiasm for education, not only because I love learning but because I embrace the fact that I

get to teach children new concepts that are applicable in life. Creativity is another one of my

virtues and I believe that a lesson that is both creative and enthusiastic, forms a huge impact on

whether students make that learning meaningful or not. Even when a subject is not fascinating to

a child interests, I strive to tie it into their interests in a way that they know they will use

throughout their lifetime. For example, I have had children who do not care or understand

multiplication but love music. In my school years my fourth grade teacher taught us songs about

our math facts that I still recall today and have instilled in my student's minds. These students

appreciate the extra effort and understood most of their math facts in a way that made it

engaging, creative, simple and applicable to their lifelong learning.

Throughout my classroom experience in the College of Education at Pittsburg State

University and at other institutions, I have observed many teaching styles, classroom practices

and educational strategies. I have learned to be proactive and considerate when introducing new

concepts to students. One area of growth that I know I can improve in is articulating and

explaining ideas to students. Improving how a concept is approached will help students

understand a concept clearly enough, to where they don't feel lost or confused. I tend to go in

circles or not stay with one strategy leaving students with a blank look. For example, during my

internship, a student asked me to help him with his multiplication worksheet. What I decided to

do is reinforce skip counting, had him recall his math facts, explain that multiplication is

repeated addition, use a multiplication chart and find missing factors. All of these concepts were

talked about in a matter of five minutes. I confess that I tried to find many solutions to solving a

problem rather than finding one that actually worked.

I understand that during student teaching I would need to work on identifying one way of

solving a problem before introducing or moving on to the next. I can do this by teaching one

strategy one day and checking for understanding to see whether they are ready to move on to the

next. Also, my rate of speaking is something that I definitely need to work on. I have a tendency

to speak too fast and leave out important details that in the end hinder students understanding. I

have made improvements since I started the College of Education by receiving positive feedback

from my clinical cooperating teacher but will be something that must be worked on during

student teaching. I will apply this by reading at a slower rate, speaking fluently, articulating my

vocabulary and applying the knowledge gained from my Linguistics course that focused on

sounds, vowels, consonants and phonetics and its distinctive features.

Content

During my academic years at Pittsburg State University, I have gained a strong

understanding of deciphering standards and objectives. These standards were first debriefed in

my Curriculum Development course. Step by step our instructor explained how to break down a

standard in order to write a proper objective. Also, Anticipatory sets, lesson introduction (in kid

language), gradual release of responsibility, closure and assessment where all crucial to

developing a correct lesson plan. This gained knowledge was applied during my clinical, where I

had the opportunity to develop two lessons using these skills and teach it to my students. I had

the opportunity to receive feedback from my instructors at school and my cooperating teacher in

order to become more aware of the little things that go into lesson planning.

Another area that I am strong in is technology. In the world that we live in today,

technology is crucial for student engagement. Students have the capability of adapting their

learning to chrome books, smart boards, iPads and gadgets, in which I am comfortable with. In
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my Technology for the Classroom course, my instructor did a phenomenal job of sharing

resources that go beyond the traditional way of taking quizzes, creating surveys, submitting

writing and the traditional paper/pencil assessment. Technology creates new doors of opportunity

to all students, especially those who do not have the resources at home. In my Social Studies

class, my instructor had a guest speaker where he shared to the class what mystery skype was.

Basically, what this was, was that one classroom had the opportunity to skype with another

classroom in the United States. Both classrooms had to guess what state they each lived in.

Students gave each other clues of state characteristics, climate, region and population. This is a

way to expand students’ creativity and make them culturally aware of what happens outside their

own classrooms. I can frankly say that these resources are something that I will use in my future

classroom in order to promote culture sensitivity, proper engagement, create new knowledge and

promote social/emotional skills.

Promoting a growth mindset is something that the college of education has promoted to

their students all through the program. Realizing that we all make mistakes and that those

mistakes can be reinforced is something that I share with my students. Understanding that some

students have grown up with a fixed mindset to where they accept failure is an option is

something that I push against. A growth mindset is admitting that disturbances happen in life and

something must be done to overcome them. This leads me to accept that an area of growth as an

educator is the use of disciplinary knowledge to be applied at local and global levels.

I strive my students to push for meaningful learning but seldom do I tell them why. In

order for students to use higher thinking skills, become aware of their beliefs and values and

promote an educational background, I will make extra time to explain to my students why that

knowledge is important. As an example, we know that Math is important because it keeps our
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life orderly and free of chaos, it also inducts creativity and critical thinking skills. During my

student teaching, I will work with my cooperating teacher and teachers around me to explain to

students why it is important to apply learned skills to real life situations. I will promote,

inductive reasoning, making connections and learning that comparing scenarios lead them to

make right choices and accepting proper consequences.

Instructional Practice

During my time at the College of Education, I have taken courses that expand my

knowledge on how to identify, create, and execute assessments. In my ESOL minor assessment

course, I had the opportunity to learn about the different types of assessment and how to choose

assessments that are both reliable and valid. It is important for a teacher to identify where

students stand at an academic level by using a diagnostic test. This helps them identify each

student’s strengths, areas of growth and to place them with other students in the same

instructional level. Thanks to this class, I had the ability to administer assessment to my children

during all of my observations and while I have not had the opportunity to execute this knowledge

in my own classroom, I am sure that I can be able to accommodate students with special needs,

language barriers, and different cultural backgrounds.

One of the things that I feel highly confident about is checking for understanding. It

comes easy for to me to identify if a student is understanding a concept or is having difficulty.

Assessment can be formative and summative. One thing that I excel in is formative assessment. I

like to give and receive constant feedback in areas of growth. In my Early Childhood

Foundations course, our instructor gave us ways to test students without them feeling that it was

an assessment. Another formative assessment was using short answer and essay questions where
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student get to express their thinking in writing. During my Clinical Experience, I had the

opportunity to create prompts that helped students express their thinking about a topic in class.

Something that I can definitely improve on is giving appropriate feedback. I feel that

when a student does something proper or is actively listening, I do a good job at motivating, but I

lack on explaining why or how that behavior is right. In my classroom management class our

instructor guided us through meaningful praise. During my student teaching, I will practice new

concepts in order to give proper feedback on students’ progress and behavior. I will work with

my cooperating teacher to create prompts and explain to my students why they did a “Good Job.”

I can start by adding details such as; “Very neat hand writing, Zach. It's clear and easy to read.”

This gives students feedback on what they did right and continue to work on something they

already excel in.

Professional Responsibility

As a teaching candidate, one of the things that must be part of our knowledge base is the

safety of our children. I have a proper acquisition of technology resources that are safe, legal and

ethical. Websites like Go Noodle, Kid tube and Prodigy are among of the many sites that I use

during my internship that focuses on expanding education, filters out unwanted ads and are safe

resources for both teachers and students. Some of these educational websites can be used as

assessment, practice and differentiating students’ needs. I can humbly say that these resources

will help me during my student teaching, future classroom and sharing them with parents and

other educators.

During my internship I have bonded well enough with the teachers and administrators

enough to where they consider me for events, ask for my opinion and I am constantly receiving

feedback on subject areas where I perform correctly or need improvement in. They have asked
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me to collaboratively work with them by implementing my ideas for lessons using a google doc.

I have worked on building positive relationships which reflects in my internship. Creating

positive connections in a school, sets a school culture of respect where everyone works together

and strives for respect, which in the end leads to effective teaching.

An area of growth for me is communicating with parents or guardians. During my

teaching practicum I have been more of an observer when it comes to communicating with

parents. I feel that part of my area of improvement has to deal with my lack of confidence and

knowing what to say to these parents. During my professional semester I will work on this by

being an active participant, gradually overtaking the role of a teacher and creating possible

scenarios with my cooperating teacher that could possibly occur in my future classroom.

Conclusion

During my time in the College of Education at Pittsburg State University, I have been

given the foundations of becoming a teacher. My courses have guided me enough to be able to

apply it in the classroom and I can confidently say that I have received proper preparation to

teach the future. While there are areas of growth, I am optimistic that by identifying them as

problems and creating solutions to fix them, I have overcome the first step of an active

practitioner that pushes for that positive, optimistic mindset of growth.