End-of-Year Reflection

Teaching Superpowers

 

One “teaching superpower” I have is building relationships with students. This is something that I came into teaching with already, and something that I can still grow in. I believe that relationships precede any teaching or conflict resolution that may happen in the classroom, therefore should be pursued first. As part of building relationships with students, I present my honest self to them in hopes that they feel comfortable to do the same with me.

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Another strength of mine is the ability to respectfully hold my students to a high standard of work. Some students may see me as a “fun” or “nice” teacher, which is completely accurate. In addition to that, I don’t let those qualities compromise the work they do in my class. All students are held to the same high standard that I set for their daily work and their larger assignments. One example of this is that when they turn in unfinished work, I do not give them partial credit. I would rather return it and have them complete the work thoroughly than leave it unfinished. 

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Areas of Growth

 

One area for growth that I have is in my classroom management. Specifically, I am still learning how to hold students accountable for repeated unexpected behaviors. I have now learned that it is better to loop parents into the conversation earlier rather than later, although I sometimes want to try to “fix” the problems myself. This practice of continual classroom management is hard to balance, and very important to keep focusing on. 

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Another area of growth that I have is in placing the cognitive load of lessons more on students and less on myself. It is easy, especially when I want students to come out of an exploration with certain discoveries, to design a lesson that takes minimal student thinking. But, it is definitely more beneficial for students to grapple with content and make connections on their own. I have found that following the launch-explore-drop anchor format of a lesson helps with this, and I am trying to use it more. But increasing student cognitive load is an area that I would like to focus on next year.

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Future Focus Questions

 

In terms of areas to focus on during year two of SDTR, I have two possible questions to study. One is, “How might I better provide challenge options for students who are already meeting or exceeding grade level expectations without making them simply do more work?” The second is, “How might I support students with IEPs in our day to day classroom environment to grow in their goal areas?” I hope to learn more about these areas of interest next year.