Wow, this week has felt like a bit of a whirlwind passing by. Social Studies Methods is absolutely a class that keeps me constantly on my toes. I know in the end I will be so thankful for this, though, because it will prepare me for the world of teaching. In that world I must be prepared and always on top of things. This week, we went to meet with the teachers we will be interning with over at Washington Elementary and it was great to see how excited the teachers are to have us helping out in their classrooms. I was absolutely astonished by the "Data Room" that we had our lunch and discussion time in. There were pictures of each individual student taped to the wall in certain places that allowed teachers to easily see which students needed to progress more and which students needed to be challenged more. It was the most real form of intervention or differentiation I have ever seen. I hope to one day work in a school that has teachers who genuinely care about individual students and their progress as much as the teachers I met on Wednesday did.
This week we had to get together our goals and activities to fill out our professional development plan. I am excited to get the PDP filled out and approved with Dr. Parker, because I know that it will give me the opportunity to now set goals for myself that I know I need to accomplish. I believe it will also put the Professional Teaching Standards more into perspective, as I will be addressing those standards in a real way that is applicable to me, personally. I have found that what I enjoy most about this Social Studies Methods course is the amount of freedom I have through my blog posts and in our online class discussions to gather the information and express it in my own personal way of thinking. I also love that I am able to see the different ways other students process information, because it is opening my eyes to just how differently we all think. This is such a valuable tool as I must be able to understand so many ways of thinking to be sure I am reaching every one of my future students effectively.
It was my turn to lead and moderate our class discussion in the google community page this week. I was a bit nervous to begin a conversation regarding differentiation, because I am honestly always nervous when discussing it. I believe that every single piece of my lesson plans are more than likely going to contain some form of differentiation, so I can't understand why it is something many education students fear. After discussing a little bit over email with Taylor, we decided that the fear stems mostly from the fact that we often times just don't even know where to begin when it comes to differentiating in our classrooms. So, I found an article that addresses this issue and decided to pull some discussion questions from it. So far, it appears that the class responded positively to the article and had a rather lengthy and in-depth conversation regarding the discussion questions I pulled from the article.
If I had to pick one word to describe all of my collective teaching program experiences for this week, it would be "real." Through creating my personal plans for achievement, meeting with the teachers from Washington Elementary, and getting to be part of in-depth discussions regarding differentiation, I feel like this week my experiences became "real."
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