Tara Luke

9/19/14
Student Teaching

TEACHING AND LEARNING STATEMENT

Theoretical Framework
A wise professor once said to me, Teach children, not curriculum. This advice has
been both my goal and my struggle through my experiences at a student teacher. Although
students must all learn a certain number of objectives in a particular grade by a certain time,
children are people who have different preferences and abilities. Therefore, they need to be
taught with their individuality in mind. Not everyone learns in the exact same manner at the
exact same pace. In order for each student in my classroom to flourish, I cannot solely teach
children academics; I must also teach them self-actualization. My educational philosophy of
humanism stresses the importance of students individual needs, personal freedom, and bringing
each of them to their fullest potential.
As an educator, my responsibility is to make children believe they can do anything if they
put their minds to it. In order for students to reach their full potential, I must guide them
towardnot continuously feed theminformation, provide a safe and relaxing classroom
environment, and provide rich instruction that is meaningful and connects to their prior
knowledge. First, I believe it is very detrimental to feed students information or answers
continuously. This totally defeats the objective of allowing their personality to speak through
their schoolwork and their learning. For instance, after reading a childrens novel to a second
grade classroom and asking provoking questions that address comprehension and prediction, I
pass out a chapter-aligning worksheet that not only addresses these same concepts further, but
also poses questions that allows the students to analyze what is happening in the story and make
personal connections. I emphasize to students that I will not answer any questions pertaining to
the answers on these worksheets other than reading the question aloud or defining a challenging
word; I want them to try sound spelling words and think about the answers themselves. We then
go over them as a class so the students are able to share individual answers, hear other answers
from their peers, and think more deeply about the story at hand. When teaching my science,
students are able to write their own predictions pertaining to plan growth and show their
personality and knowledge by drawing colorful pictures of their predictions and observations. I
try to promote student self-sufficiency as much as possible for this subject because science is not
about investigating the answers of others; it is about seeking the answer to your own questions. I
also try to call on participating students who do not normally do so in particular lessons. In this
way, I am positively reinforcing the student to participate more while raising their self-esteem
because they are getting the question or problem correct. Humanism is also expressed in my
classroom management in the way that their desks are arranged with successful collaboration in
mind (i.e. placing students with weak reading skills near students with strong reading skills). I
also like to put students who have greater academic needs closer to my desk so they not only
have easier and quicker access to help from me, but I can also easily check to make sure they are
on task. In terms of addressing humanism and individual student needs, this manner of arranging
their desks is beneficial when I discuss the students progress with their parents so certain
parents can be assured that I am creating a classroom environment that will hopefully increase
their childs learning and minimize their distractions. I also give my students particular jobs
based on their interests and abilities. For instance, one student is quite active and always moves
about the classroom. By giving him the job as room inspector, he is allowed to sweep and tidy
up the classroom when he has free time. With this, I have not only maintained his self-
actualization by not having to reprimand him continuously to sit quietly and instead allow him to
release this pent-up energy, but I have also increased his responsibility and personal freedom.
In order to reach full potential, students must love and respect themselves. They must
truly understand that they bring something important to not only their classroom, but also to the
world. By enforcing humanist qualities into my classroom, I am helping students learn in a
better environment. Just like adults, youngsters will not perform well when stressed, unhappy, or
dissatisfied. Therefore, if students do not believe they can be taught or feel I am inhibiting them
from expressing self-freedom, they will not learn. This is why I incorporate student discussions,
enforce a classroom community, and allow students to make their own choices which will
achieve the goal of learning and give each student a sense of pride and responsibility. Students
will also learn under my philosophy because it involves diversifying lessons to fit their needs. I
may require one student to only write a couple of sentences because of his poor fine motor and
writing skills or I may challenge another student to complete math problems a little higher than
her level because I know that her high level of number sense will guide her to finding the
answer. Because the assignments are diverse, assessments may also be diverse. If I know that
one student may know the material well but cannot write the answers fast enough, I may verbally
discuss questions with him at the back of the room and assess him in that way. Or I may offer
partial credit to a student who has exhibited full knowledge of a math problem, but might have
made one slight miscalculation. I believe that children are innately good and desire to be good
learners; they just need a teacher to give them a chance to shine and believe that each of them
bring something unique to the world.


Reflective Teaching
I assess myself based on two factors: if students are learning the material to a desirable
level and if students are enjoying the lessons. I understand that not every subject is going to
interest or engage all students. What I can ensure is that students are not completely uninterested
either. This is why I involve students to work out and explain math problems to the class instead
of listen to my explanations, or allow group discussions pertaining to reading comprehension
after we read a chapter in a story. I believe that getting students interested and happy is one of
my strengths. I think I achieve this by explaining concepts in a visual and very realistic way.
When teaching math, I like to represent problems with pictures and demonstrate the math in a
visual and comparable way so students understand them better and at a deeper level than just
memorizing facts. I also utilize small white boards when teaching writing so students can refer
to my example sentences while working individually. An area for my growth is classroom
management. This has been an ongoing professional development experience for me. During
my pre-student teaching experience, I felt that the students definitely liked me, but possibly did
not respect me as much as I would have liked. However, multiple factors could have affected
such a situation such as grade level (they were 4
th
graders) and I came into their classroom in the
middle of the year versus establishing myself on the first day of school. During student teaching,
I feel I have grown a great deal in terms of classroom management and it seems to be a bit easier.
However, as stated previously, these students are two grades younger and met me on the first day
of school so these could both very well be contributing factors. Although my humanist ways
sometimes prevent me from reprimanding students because I want them to make their own
choices and express personal freedom, I suppose there are times when I need to be more
consistent and demand some ground expectations. An area I have definitely improved upon
since my last teaching experience is student communication. Now that I am teaching second
graders, I make sure my directions are extremely clear, linear, repetitive, and specific. I
demonstrated this when explaining to them how to play classroom BINGO and a great majority
of the class followed my directions completely without any questions or misunderstanding. I
have been reflecting on my strengths and weaknesses throughout all of my professional
experiences including observing teachers of various grade levels, tutoring second graders at an
urban school, volunteering at an early childhood center, pre-student teaching in a fourth grade
classroom, and now student teaching in a second grade classroom.
Innovative Teaching
Having humanist qualities, I am constantly seeking ways to improve each students
learning abilities and knowledge in a way that is useful and understandable to them as
individuals. I do not believe that all students learn and apply information the same way.
Therefore, I informally evaluate students by observing particular work periods and viewing their
work to see how they learn and use this information to develop individual strategies. For
instance, one student has difficulty relating what he has heard in a story to his own personal life.
He once has problems describing a character. This student absolutely LOVES Spider-Man, and
so I asked him how he would describe Spider-Man. He was able to do this without hesitation.
After applying how he described Spider-Man and connecting it to describing the character in the
story he heard, he was able to give me so many different examples and clearly understood the
concept much better. Another student is reluctant to begin work independently because he wants
to constantly tell me stories. Instead of standing by his desk and dictating every command or
yelling at him to get back to work, I make him a deal. I tell him that he is to complete one task
(i.e. copy the answers from the board, complete 5 problems, ect) and once he is done and checks
it with me, he is able to talk to me about his personal life for a minute. Then, when the minute is
up, I give him more tasks to do and he cannot continue talking to me until those tasks are done. I
am not able to do this constantly, but it is effective for some lessons. Not only do I differentiate
instruction for individual students needs, but I also plan creative learning experiences to make
my teaching more exciting. I am currently learning to utilize more technology in the classroom.
I am fortunate to be student teaching in a district with excess funds to provide each classroom
with an ELMO projector, light pens, and so much more. When I go over chapter/reading
worksheets with the students to check for understanding after they have attempted it on their
own, I like to project the worksheet on the board using the ELMO and then use the light pen to
write in the answers on the line. This allows the class to see the worksheet and answers just as
it appears right in front of them at their desks rather than read the answers orally and either lose
students in the discussion or confuse them. Soon, after students possess a little more maturity
and self-control, I will allow a few of them to come to the board and use the light pen
themselves. Utilizing this technology allows the lesson to be fun, creative, and engaging.
Diverse Teaching
Before teaching in any school, an educator must examine and analyze the schools
surrounding district and community to note socioeconomic status, community resources, and
culture. This is important because an educator must adapt his or her instruction to meet these
stipulations. For instance, after examining the community around my school, I found that even
though the area caters to mostly middle class families, the district participates in a School of
Choice program so not all students and parents who attend are living to this status. Also, after
meeting many parents I noticed that most but not all possessed higher education. Therefore,
being a humanist, it is my duty to make sure my students believe in their own capabilities and
know that, if they work hard enough and focus, they will succeed and do not have to limit their
opportunities just because their parents do not stress education. After learning a little more about
each students diverse backgrounds, I plan to adapt my individual instruction to meet their needs.
Humanist educators also greatly consider the feelings of their students. Because I know that not
all of the students families in my community are middle class and some parents or guardians
may possess limited education, I do not assign extensive homework that parents could not
understand or offer field trip opportunities that families could not afford. These situations would
make students and their families very uncomfortable. Instead, I assign homework that I know
students could do on their own or I make it known to parents that students may sign out and
bring home a teachers reference guide to help them understand the homework. I also offer
various fundraising opportunities for students and their families to prepare for field trips or
outings. Committing to diversity does not solely mean obtaining bilingual instruction or
educating children on various cultures; it also means simply making students feel comfortable in
the classroom and making their families feel comfortable with the classroom atmosphere at home
and in their community.
After examining my teaching philosophy, I am proud of my humanist qualities because I
believe empowering young people, adapting instruction to fit individual needs, and
acknowledging diversity are the most important morals an educator can have because it makes
students feel appreciated, noticed, and comfortable. Also, I feel that by examining my own
beliefs and how they align with my strengths and weaknesses has made me reflect greatly as to
how to conduct future classrooms. The kindness and respect that I give to my students will
strengthen my classroom community, but also being consistent and placing strong expectations
regarding their academic responsibilities and behavior will also help me overcome my
weaknesses.