Conquering My Fears
One of my greatest fears is that I will someday lose the sense of excitement and novelty (and sometimes anxiety) that comes with teaching. I fear that I will become too comfortable with my teaching practice. I fear that I will be content to teach as I have always taught, therefore eliminating opportunities to change and grow as an educator. In order to combat my fear, I have set three goals for my future educational practice. These goals allow and require me to step out of my teaching comfort zone as I take risks and embrace the unknown. As I explained in my Goal Reflection Essay, I would like to be open to a variety of resources and pedagogical practices; this can only happen if I continue to try new things and reach beyond what I have always done. In order to push myself to try new things, I have set three goals for my future educational practice: create and utilize an online learning environment, become a trauma informed educator, and share my technology learning with other educators.
Create and Utilize an Online Learning Environment
Throughout my studies in the masters program at Michigan State, I have had the opportunity to create theoretical online learning environments. I have created mock classrooms using both Edmodo and Google Classroom, two Content Management Systems that are becoming more common in today’s classrooms. I have the experience using these technologies in theory, but I have yet to use them with my own students. In keeping with my goal of being open to beneficial resources, I believe it is important to utilize an online learning environment with my own students. In their paper, “Is K-12 Blended Learning Disruptive,” Christensen, Horn, and Staker explain that combining online learning with traditional learning environments presents a simple and convenient way of reaching a large audience. I believe this, now I need to achieve this in my own classroom. Within the next year, I would like to create an online learning environment for my students to use for both math and reading. I hope to use the tips provided by Edmodo to help me get started with this goal. I would like this learning environment to provide students with resources and a place for communication (and discussion with other students). Eventually, I would like to incorporate assessment into this online space, as I did when I created a mathematics assessment using Edmodo.
Become a Trauma-Informed Educator
In the past, I have focused my energy on improving lesson content and delivery. I have tried new tools, searched for resources, and spent hours planning what I believe are powerful lessons. Too often these lessons fall flat with some or all of my students. What I have come to realize (and hope to continue to study), is that many of my students are struggling socially and emotionally. These internal struggles (a result of factors outside of the classroom and outside of the student’s control) are making it impossible for them to focus on the math lesson I spent hours developing. Becoming a Trauma-Informed Educator will help me to learn about the effects of trauma on the brain; it will also help me develop strategies to build resiliency in students. Becoming a trauma-informed teacher means that I will add social and emotional learning to the traditional academic content taught in my classroom. While this may seem counterproductive to the current push for increased test scores, teaching social emotional skills has actually been shown to increase academic success. To become a trauma-informed teacher and develop a trauma-sensitive classroom, I will study the text Fostering Resilient Learners (Kristin Souers).
Share My Technology Learning with Other Educators
In addition to embracing change within my own teaching, I would like to work to inspire change in others. When I learn new skills and introduce them in my classroom, my students benefit. When I share these new skills with other teachers, many more students benefit. In my experience, I have found that many teachers are open to change (and are interested in trying new technologies), but are afraid to experiment on their own. When I have taken time to share and teach other teachers about new technology, my colleagues are often receptive and excited to try new things in their own classroom. In the future, I would like to focus on sharing new technology resources. An added benefit to teaching my grade level teachers is that I will become more competent in using the technologies myself. As a first step in meeting this goal, I would like to plan and present at one of our after school professional development meetings.
It is my hope that these three goals will form a foundation for continued growth and learning as an educator. These goals will alleviate my fears so my sense of excitement will not waiver.
To download a PDF version of my Future Goals Essay, click the link below.