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.
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.
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.
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.
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.