Final

My philosophy on teaching is good teachers produce good learners. Harry K. Wong, teacher and philosopher, stated, “In an effective classroom, students should not only know what they are doing, they should also know why and how” (Wong, 2010).  Teaching is not simply telling information to a student.  Teachers must go above and beyond telling.  Teaching without passion will cause learners to learn dispassionately.  As a future educator, I am responsible for my students’ learning.  There is no such thing as someone who cannot learn.  Teachers may be incapable of teaching, but a student is always capable of learning.  I will pour passion into my content and expect passion back.

Although passionate teaching breeds passionate learning, classroom management is crucial in creating the effective classroom that Wong spoke of.  A teacher must minimize managerial problems to maximize learning. Like Nelson, Lott, and Glenn, writers of Positive Discipline, I too will set up a classroom based on mutual respect and encouragement (Lott, 2009).  I will discipline my students, but I will try to continue to carry on instruction effectively.  It is important to find the behavior that causes behavioral problems, but that will take place after instruction.   When discussing behavioral issues with students, I will be sure to follow the Thomas Gordon model and incorporate I-messages.  I will tell students how I feel about their behavior instead of pointing fingers; this always goes along with the idea of mutual respect.  I want to create a challenging, exciting, engrossing, thought provoking, structured classroom.  I know that the first day of school is crucial and I plan to follow Wong and begin discipline plans in the first class.  .

Once I pour passion into instruction, and set up an effective classroom, I plan on incorporating withitness (Elementary classroom management, 2008).  I will have methods of handling overlapping in the classroom.  Proximity control and eye contact will be crucial to keeping my students focused.  I will have routines and well managed lessons that will keep the flow of learning constant.

In addition to these other important teacher characteristics, teachers need to acknowledge their responsibility with regards to a changing America.  Technology is changing the way we do things whether it be work, communicate, learn, etc.  “We know that 75 percent of American adolescents are online (U.S. Census, 2002) and 85 percent of all Internet users expect to find key news information online (Horrigan and Rainie, 2002).” Yet “the adolescents of the nineties are more isolated and more unsupervised than other generations” (Hersch, 1998). The tools of visual, media, and information literacy must be taught in school because they will (or won’t) be used at home.  We need to ask ourselves, “How can I teach language arts (or science or social studies or math) to students who are constantly exposed to multimedia, virtual reality, and electronic communities?...”  "Today's explosion in media technologies has brought new literacies into being, transforming the way these kindergartners read the word and read the world, even if our schools have been one of the last places to recognize this(Teaching youth media, 2003)."

All in all, the teacher is responsible for a very important thing: a child’s expansion of knowledge.  I want to be passionate.  I want to be withit.  I want to be assertive. I simply want my students to love what they learn.  In order to do this I know that I will need to effectively set up my classroom so students should not only know what they are doing, but also know why and how.

References:

Abilock, D. (2003, November/December). A seven-power lens on 21st century literacy. DOI: www.infotoday.com/mmschools

Wong, H. (2010). Classroom management and procedures. Retrieved from http://www.abvm.org/school/second/files/rules.pdf

Lott, L. (2009). Positive discipline. Retrieved from http://www.positivediscipline.com/

Shaffer, S. C. (2009, June 18). Creating a positive classroom climate. Retrieved from http://www.personal.psu.edu/scs15/idweb/positiveclimate.htm

(2003). Teaching youth media. New York: Teachers College Press.

Elementary classroom management. (2008). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Semali, L. (2001, November). Defining new literacies in curricular practice. Reading Online, 5(4). Retrieved from: http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/lit_index.asp?HREF=semali1/index.html

RESOURCES:

http://www.edmodo.com/

EDUCATIONAL FACEBOOK!  Great technology interaction.

http://thinkfinity.org/

Great instructional resources here!

http://webquest.org/index.php

homepage for those wanting WebQuest information. This is a powerful tool for integrating web resources into the classroom

http://www.landmark-project.com/classweb/tools.html

site that is devoted to providing educators with the tools to interact with their students and others.

http://www.eduweb.com/

This site is the main gateway to all kins of great adventures on the web.