Artifacts and Characteristics of a Novice Teacher #4

For this blog I have decided to talk about blog number four which states, "We believe the novice teacher should be a facilitator of learning for all students." I wanted to talk about this topic because in my PDS I have had to develop lessons that would effective for students of all levels. Their is a student in my class who is Autistic and I had to create my lesson that would keep this student interested in the lesson. If this student gets uninterested in the lesson then the student tends to just sit at his desk just looking at his paper. I believe that because of this reason it fits under this standard of a novice teacher.
Also, at my PDS I have had to create lessons that keep the students moving because if i just let them sit at their desks then they loose focus or get bored with the situation. I have talked with my mentor teacher and we have discussed the fact that this group of students need to be moving at times. During the lessons I have moved my students from the carpet to their desks while teaching.

Artifacts and Characteristics of a Novice Teacher #2

I believe throughout this process of being in the schools under a mentor teacher, I have learned how to be an effective communicator. The reason I say this is because this year before I leave, I have time to talk with my mentor teacher. She gives me ideas as to what kind of lessons to do and also things I need to improve from the lesson I might have just done. During this time I also have the chance to communicate with her and tell her things I plan on doing in my lessons. We have a good 15 minutes to talk and I really value that time with my mentor teacher. During the 15 minutes we get a lot of good communication done. For example, today was Thursday and I discussed with her my lesson for Monday that I will be teaching. I told her some of the activities I was planning on doing and she gave me good ideas on how to better them. I will take her advice and try to implement it inot my lesson. She also told me what parts she thought would work well and I liked that because I feel more comfortable in my lesson on Monday.
The reason I have wrote about this communication is because it falls into characteristic number 2 which states: We believe that the novice teacher should be and effective communicator. The reason this fits into this characteristic is because our communication is effective. It is effective because my mentor teacher always gives me ideas on how to better my teaching skills in written and spoken form. There is also times when she emails me if she has an idea of something I need to change or maybe might want to do.
Communication is so very important between my mentor teacher and I because it is really her teaching time for me. It shows me how I should communicate as a teacher when I have my own class. I want to be able to have good communication with my studetns and provide times for teacher student communication. By this I mean other times then just class room discussion. I want there to be times where the student and teacher can communicate on more of a one on one status. Communication is so very important to teacher!!

Artifacts and Characteristics of a Novice Teacher #8

I have now spent a lot of time in my PDS to explore the different characteristics. On this blog I would like to talk about characteristic number 8. This characteristic states: we believe the novice teacher should be a reflective practitioner. What it means is that a reflective practitioner is some one who critically examines choices to inform practice.
I believe that i have exhibited this characteristic when I am at my PDS. The main way I have exhibited this is by activities like verbal retell. We take time to discuss the text in their terms and they are the main point of the discussion. This fits the characteristic because it helps the students critically examine the text along with the teacher. When the students take the time to critically examine the text they tend to grasp the context of the text somewhat better. I also see them talking the time to talk during class because they are examining the text. It is kind of like they are the teacher.
The second area where I exhibit this characteristic is in getting a lesson ready. Before planning a lesson I read the weekly story in depth and look at the activities or practices that come from that text. By looking further into my text I can become for familiar with the story so I can teach it better. I believe as teachers we have to try to be prepared for every situation. I am still working on this but would say I'm getting better all the times.

Artifacts and Characteristics of a Novice Teacher #6

I would like to talk about the science unit plan. For this lesson i chose to create a lesson around weathering and erosion. For this lesson i began by just introducing the topic to the students because they didn't know much about the topic at all when I did the interview. After introducing the topic I moved on to letting the students work with their hands to gain knowledge about erosion and weathering. They got to draw pictures and work with sand to see the process of erosion. The students seemed to really enjoy working with their hands. By the end of the science unit i had the students draw a picture of erosion or weathering and write a few sentences on what was happening in their picture. By doing this I could see if the students had grasp the difference between the two and also how the two work.

I thought many characteristics came to mind when looking at this unit but I thought number 6 fit the best. This characteristic stated "we believe that the novice teacher should have in-depth knowledge of content". This characteristic works because by doing this lesson I as the teacher had to have a full knowledge of the unit. If i didn't know my stuff on teaching weathering and erosion then my students would have grasp the content. This was a new topic for the students so I was the one introducing the topic to them and also lead them in discovery about the topic. As teachers we have to know what we are teaching. If we don't know it then how are we expected to teach it!