Successes
I
feel at my best in my classroom when students are engaged in some type of group
work. I’m not a big fan of standing in front of the class and lecturing. Of
course, that’s part of teaching, but a much smaller part now than it used to
be, and I certainly don’t enjoy lecturing because I can tell that it bores
students. Class is much more enjoyable when students are having fun with active
learning. We’ve done a lot of lab activities this semester and it’s obvious
that students enjoy these much more than they enjoy PowerPoints and worksheets.
Similarly, students seem more motivated to learn when I make connections
between course content and their everyday lives. What I love about science, and
biology specifically, is that there is always a way to relate what we need to
learn in class to students’ lives outside of class. This helps me avoid the
dreaded question: “why are we learning this?” It also improves student
engagement because meaningful learning taps into the natural curiosity of the
students.
My
best success stories have come when students engage in meaningful learning.
Most of the time, this occurs when students are able to participate in a
hands-on lab activity. For example, when we were covering the properties of
water, I had students circle around to different stations throughout the room,
each one with a demonstration that corresponds to a different property of
water. After students had been to all the stations, I taught them the properties
of water and challenged them to match each property to each station. Students
found these stations fun, and the challenge of matching a property to each one
was highly motivating. We’ve done other labs that were similarly fun, such as
the carbohydrate lab in which students were challenged to determine if various
sugars were monosaccharides, disaccharides, or polysaccharides.
Another one of my successes, and one of my biggest challenges, has come with
our policy managing cell phones and other personal electronic devices. From the
first day of class, my menor teacher and I established that we didn’t want to
see or hear phones in class unless specifically specified for instructional
purposes. We were firm and consistent with the enforcement of this policy from
the start, and that has helped us minimize distractions throughout the school
year. Managing student behavior was one of my concerns when I first started my
internship, but this policy has taught me that being fair and consistent with a
class policy is best for minimizing disciplinary issues.
I think the MAT program has prepared me really
well for my teaching career. I appreciate that the program gradually got me
back into the classroom by starting me with an observational experience,
followed by a part-time teaching experience, and finally the full-time
internship. Additionally, I have learned many practical skills that I’ve been
able to use in the classroom to maximize student learning. The 5E model, for
example, is something I’ve used every day to develop engaging and meaningful
lesson plans. Finally, the feedback I’ve received from my lesson observations
have been invaluable for improving my teaching. I can tell what some of my
strengths and weaknesses are when I teach, but it’s nice to have mentor
teachers that can watch me and provide me with useful feedback that I can use
to improve my instruction.
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