Professional Goals Essay
Páginas: 5 (1237 palabras)
Publicado: 24 de octubre de 2011
Universidad de los Andes
School of Education
The International School Nido de Aguilas
Mr. Troy Redd
Fourth E
Professional Goals Essay
August 8th, 2011
Josefina Guzman
Ezia Valenzuela
Professional Goals Essay
Name: Josefina Guzman Date: August 8th, 2011
School: The International School Nido de Aguilas Class: Fourth E
“There is no achievement withoutgoals”, those are the words of Robert J. McKaine and he is absolutely right. How can a person reach a point if he/she does not know what the point is? It’s like hoping to arrive to a place without knowing where it is; you could arrive there, but it is extremely difficult. Only when we are able to identify the end, we can see easily the path to get there. In this student teaching semester I decided toset for myself the following goals in order of importance: first, to demonstrate the ability to use English as the language of instruction in my classroom; second, to become a competent educator willing to continue improving my skills by developing professional relationships with my cooperating teacher and University supervisor; and third, to learn to explore and systematically reflect onteaching practices while coping with the daily realities of classroom teaching within a school culture.
With regard to my pre-student teaching experience, I believe that my interaction with students was successful. I think that because I always fostered independence in them, so that they were the ones to think, to evaluate, to deduce or induce, to infer, to reflect, etc.; in other words, they were theones to develop their own skills. There was no such thing as telling an answer because there is neither learning nor mental processing in that. I remember that a student once told me: “Miss, I don’t understand”, “Well, read the instructions and tell me what you think this problem is about” I said. “Oh, can you just tell me what I have to do?” she answered. “I can’t because you have to be able toidentify that there are some key words in this problem that tell you what to do”… In the end, she discovered that she had to subtract because the person in the exercise “had lost” something. As a result, I did not select the objective of “promote thoughtful, self-directed behavior in my students in the classroom and school” because that is not one of my main weaknesses.
In addition to that, Ibelieve that my instructional competence was successful. I think that my lessons had an easy-to-follow structure, so it was hard for students to get lost. Also, I always make sure to discuss the objective of the lesson in the beginning, so they know exactly what is expected of them, and what do they have to achieve by the end of the lesson. Regarding the strategies I used, I think they weresuccessful because they considered learner’s styles and personal characteristics and skills. For example, a power point presentation with images or a video (visual), activities that require movement (kinesthetic), the use of music (auditory), writing down as many answers as possible (impulsiveness), group and individual work (social), discussing answers and procedures (reasoning), drawing (creativity),writing a song (musical intelligence), following steps one by one (logical reasoning), challenging problems (motivating), among others. I consider the participation that my students showed in those occasions as an evidence of success. Thus, I did not select the objective of “develop professional thinking and be able to demonstrate it through appropriate planning” because I consider my planningabilities one of my strengths.
On the other hand, I considered that I had difficulties with my command of English. Sometimes I had a hard time trying to remember how to say things. In the end, I had to change the words in order to say something in a different way. I’ve been reflecting a lot about this, and I believe that this has to do more with anxiety. I don’t know why, but there’s something...
School of Education
The International School Nido de Aguilas
Mr. Troy Redd
Fourth E
Professional Goals Essay
August 8th, 2011
Josefina Guzman
Ezia Valenzuela
Professional Goals Essay
Name: Josefina Guzman Date: August 8th, 2011
School: The International School Nido de Aguilas Class: Fourth E
“There is no achievement withoutgoals”, those are the words of Robert J. McKaine and he is absolutely right. How can a person reach a point if he/she does not know what the point is? It’s like hoping to arrive to a place without knowing where it is; you could arrive there, but it is extremely difficult. Only when we are able to identify the end, we can see easily the path to get there. In this student teaching semester I decided toset for myself the following goals in order of importance: first, to demonstrate the ability to use English as the language of instruction in my classroom; second, to become a competent educator willing to continue improving my skills by developing professional relationships with my cooperating teacher and University supervisor; and third, to learn to explore and systematically reflect onteaching practices while coping with the daily realities of classroom teaching within a school culture.
With regard to my pre-student teaching experience, I believe that my interaction with students was successful. I think that because I always fostered independence in them, so that they were the ones to think, to evaluate, to deduce or induce, to infer, to reflect, etc.; in other words, they were theones to develop their own skills. There was no such thing as telling an answer because there is neither learning nor mental processing in that. I remember that a student once told me: “Miss, I don’t understand”, “Well, read the instructions and tell me what you think this problem is about” I said. “Oh, can you just tell me what I have to do?” she answered. “I can’t because you have to be able toidentify that there are some key words in this problem that tell you what to do”… In the end, she discovered that she had to subtract because the person in the exercise “had lost” something. As a result, I did not select the objective of “promote thoughtful, self-directed behavior in my students in the classroom and school” because that is not one of my main weaknesses.
In addition to that, Ibelieve that my instructional competence was successful. I think that my lessons had an easy-to-follow structure, so it was hard for students to get lost. Also, I always make sure to discuss the objective of the lesson in the beginning, so they know exactly what is expected of them, and what do they have to achieve by the end of the lesson. Regarding the strategies I used, I think they weresuccessful because they considered learner’s styles and personal characteristics and skills. For example, a power point presentation with images or a video (visual), activities that require movement (kinesthetic), the use of music (auditory), writing down as many answers as possible (impulsiveness), group and individual work (social), discussing answers and procedures (reasoning), drawing (creativity),writing a song (musical intelligence), following steps one by one (logical reasoning), challenging problems (motivating), among others. I consider the participation that my students showed in those occasions as an evidence of success. Thus, I did not select the objective of “develop professional thinking and be able to demonstrate it through appropriate planning” because I consider my planningabilities one of my strengths.
On the other hand, I considered that I had difficulties with my command of English. Sometimes I had a hard time trying to remember how to say things. In the end, I had to change the words in order to say something in a different way. I’ve been reflecting a lot about this, and I believe that this has to do more with anxiety. I don’t know why, but there’s something...
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