The first Characteristic I am going to look at is “have a
commitment to and skills for lifelong learning”. This characteristic describes
how teachers need to always be willing to learn new “tricks” and they need to
be committed to always making their teaching experience better for their
students. I think that a good artifact for this characteristic would be a
screen shot of a Pinterest board that I have created related to teaching and
the classroom. I think this is a good example of this characteristic because it
shows that you can go online and research new ideas. It also shows when you
have researched these ideas and that is an example that a teacher is always looking
for new ideas.
The second Characteristic I am going to look at is “be an
effective communicator”. The big ideas in this characteristic are that a
teacher must have communications skills to effectively communicate with various
people in the school and community. A teacher must be able to orally
communicate to people but also respond through written pieces and technology.
One artifact that can be used with this characteristic is our parent letter
home we were required to send out in Education 401. This letter was sent home
to parents to inform them about who we were and what we would be doing in their
child’s classroom. This would work for this characteristic because it shows
that teachers need to be in contact with parents at all times. Parents need to
feel like they can trust you and by having effective communication with them
you are opening the lines for them to trust you.
I love the artifact that you used for characteristic one, which states: “we believe the novice teacher should have a commitment to and skills for lifelong learning.” I feel that the pinterest board shows that you are actively participating in being a lifelong learner. You are researching new ideas, and implementing them into the classroom to see whether they are effective in facilitating student learning. Two more artifacts you can use are conferences and PLC meetings. Both of these artifacts also connect to lifelong learning. In both conferences and PLC meetings, you are learning more about teaching and instruction, you are discussing ideas, situations, and strategies with other teachers, and exploring new techniques, strategies, and concepts that can bring new knowledge, perspective, and the overall effectiveness of your own instruction in the classroom. When you are learning, experiencing, and reflecting, you are learning what works and what needs improved in your teaching, administering, and instruction skills.
ReplyDeleteI also chose to explore characteristic two which involves the novice teacher being an effective communicator. I feel that effective communication is the key for success in the classroom for both the students and the teacher. In my post, I also connected my parent letter home to this characteristic; however, there are a number of other ideas and artifacts that can connect to this characteristic as well. The two I feel that are most important are emails between you and your mentor teacher and journaling between the teacher and student. First, I want discuss the emails between you and your mentor teacher. Effective communication is important to have with students and parents, but it’s also important to be able to communicate with other teachers as well. Talking to other teachers allows us to gain new perspectives and ideas on how to teach a concept or handle a situation. In order for this communication to take place, we must learn how to effectively communicate to other teachers. This can be shown in our emails between us and our mentor teachers. This is an example of something we will be partaking in the future with our coworkers at our schools. Another example that I just learned about in seminar yesterday is called journaling. This occurs when a teacher and student write to each other daily or weekly. I feel this is a great way to communicate openly with your students. It allows students to feel comfortable talking to the teacher in a new way. It also allows the teacher to get to know each of his or her students on a more individual basis.