Learning Letter Post

This quarter has been a very fulfilling one. I was happy to share my book talk with the class, over John Green’s Looking for Alaska, a great coming of age novel that could be used in literature classrooms from grades 7 through 10 based on the Lexile level and mature themes. Then in my mini-lesson I taught a literary devices lesson over Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat. And finally, I created a three-week unit plan that covered John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. I put in a lot of work for each project, and I think that I did a very good job with each one.

I really enjoyed the readings and discussions over the pedagogical materials we explored this quarter. They gave insightful techniques that could be used in my future classroom. I particularly enjoyed the using class discussions as a teaching practice because I think that discussion enhances the learning process for students. I agree with that practice because when discussion is used effectively, students share ideas and interpretations of texts and they do the majority of the learning. I think it is important to incorporate the different ideas that we learned about this quarter and try each one to see if they work in future classrooms.

I have learned a lot as far as my abilities are as a curriculum maker, and I have learned to collaborate with peers to help share ideas. I have been participating in my practicum for two quarters now, so I have been able to interact and teach my own lessons for a while now, but what I have learned is that you can always teach more lessons to learn and become better at your craft. I am more comfortable with the idea of being a teacher now more than ever and I know I will get better as I continue to practice and work on my craft. I look forward to learning more and practicing my pedagogical skills.