The first Characteristic of the Novice Teacher I would like to explore is characteristic number four; be a facilitator of learning for all students. I think that the big idea of this characteristic is that all students in the classroom are different learners. These students bring different learning styles and abilities when they enter your classroom and as their teacher you must adapt curriculum and activities so everyone can be successful; no matter what the ability level is. As a teacher you must consistently evaluate students work and how you teach to be sure that each student has the exact opportunities for success. I think a good artifact for this characteristic would be the differentiated lesson plan we had to write for SPED 460. This assignment was to write a lesson plan and then take the same lesson and differentiate it by learning style, ability level, and the product the students created. This directly links back to the characteristic because by adapting a lesson plan for learning style, ability level, and product you are making the lesson accessible for all students to have success. The second characteristic I would like to explore is Characteristic number eight; be a reflective practitioner. I think that the big idea for this characteristic is that a teacher must always be reflecting on what he/she can do differently to ensure the success of the whole classroom. This means that after a lesson, activity, or situation the teacher thinks about what he/she could do differently next time or what went well. This helps the teacher because the next time he/she is faced in a similar scenario the teacher will know how to handle his/her actions. I think a really great artifact for this would be our teacher researcher notebooks. We have to reflect on our experiences in the classroom everyday that we attend our PDS. This strongly agrees with the characteristic because it shows that we are constantly reflecting on how we can become better teachers.
I really like the two characteristics you picked for this blog post! I find these two characteristics to be vital to teaching, and something that we are constantly discussing in our courses. The first characteristic you discussed was number four – facilitator of learning for all. This was actually one of the characteristics I chose to explore in my first post. I too chose my SPED differentiated lesson to illustrate as my connection to this particular characteristic. However after thinking about this more in-depth, I have come to realize that there are a number of things you could also include as an artifact for this. Two other artifacts that relate to learning for all are the literacy workstations we created in our Education 461 Literacy course and any type of learner profiles you have used in your class. Both of these artifacts display your own approach in getting to know the students in your class, how they learn best, and planning activities/lessons that will benefit all learners. Therefore, you could definitely consider using either of these artifacts as well. The next characteristic you explored was number eight which discussed being a reflective practitioner. As I stated before, this is something that we either assigned to do or discussed numerously in our courses. Through many of these discussions, I have learned that by reflecting on my experiences and reviewing my decisions I am able to learn how to improve each and every lesson I teach in the future. You connected this characteristic to our teacher researcher notebook. This was the first artifact I thought of when looking at this characteristic. There are also a number of other artifacts you can use including our blog – like this one – as well as our reflections after each of our lessons. Again, this characteristic is very important for all teachers to learn to refine. Through our blog, we can look back at our time in this program to see how we have progressed and different conclusions about teaching that we have stumbled upon. After each of our lesson plans, we are to reflect on student learning and how we can improve our teaching in the future. I feel that both of these artifacts adequately address this characteristic due to the fact that they challenge us to think about our actions and how we can become better educators in the future.
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