I feel that there were many experiences this year
that have had a strong impact on what I will do in my future classroom. Throughout my student teaching experience I sought out to design lesson plans based on the individual needs of each student. To design these lesson plans, I conducted different assessment techniques to see what strength and weaknesses each student possessed. Also, within my lesson plans, accommodations for students who were advanced and those who were struggling were always employed in each lesson. My student teaching experience gave me first hand experience with how to successfully design instruction so that all types of learners are reached. I feel that I am now comfortable organizing ideas through graphic organizers, creating cooperative learning groups, conducting ongoing assessment and creating visual rich displays to help language learners to successfully follow along. I frequently spoke with students one-on-one, fostering a caring and welcoming environment while at the same time discovering individual learning needs and styles. The students were comfortable approaching me as well as one another for help and input, an essential element to any successful learning environment.
This year I experienced creating, designing and delivering inquiry, technology based lessons. I was lucky to have a Smart Board in my classroom and feel that it is a very valuable tool for teaching in this day in age. Students always seemed very engaged in my interactive lessons. They loved being able to take a turn and come up to the Smart Board to manipulate the answers. 100% of my students this year were English language learners (ELL) so the Smart Board contributed to their English Language Development (ELD). I just hope that in my next teaching assignment I will be one of the lucky teachers who will have access to this tool of technology.
