Motivation in the Classroom

There were many times in my educational career where, as part of an assignment, I was told I had to perform, or give a presentation. There one that stands out the most to me, was when I was in my last year of college, finishing up my undergrad, and I had to teach a lesson, with a couple classmates, and we had to go ALL OUT. Speaking in front of my peers still, to this day, makes me so unbelievably nervous. YES, I want to be a teacher. YES, I know I have to talk in front of students day in and day out at my desired career, but it is SO different. This lesson that I had to perform was unlike anything I’ve ever done before, and it was SO MUCH FUN. We had to lead lesson plan, and it had to be active. My peers were mainly who motivated me to do my best while working on this project. The lesson was safari themed, and we had to be enthusiastic and we had to be able to teach the lesson. It was fun, and I was still nervous. What go me into it, and inspired me, was that someday, I would be able to teach a lesson just like this, and my students could be just as excited as I was. Its remarkable being able to think about what you can do for you students in the future, and knowing that what you’re training for is to better you and make sure you give your students the education that they deserve. 

There have been many times in my educational career where I’ve felt deflated, and asked myself what I was doing. Am I doing the right thing? Am I going to be good enough? There was this one time during a class and I had to analyze a passage from a text, and present it to the class. My professor, during the question time after my presentation, attacked me (well, I felt like I was being attacked), and I failed. I remember walking out of class humiliated, and I never wanted to go back. I needed to pass this class in order to get my degree. No question. So, two days later, I went back, and I talked to my professor, and she gave me another chance. It was rough. I worked so hard, and it wasn’t good enough, and when something like that happens, you begin to question yourself, and your ability to do what you thought you were good at. After that, I was able to pick myself up, and realize that I’ve come too far to stop. There are always going to be setbacks, and there will always be times that you question yourself, but it’s always worth it to keep going. 

As a teacher, I hope to motivate my students to do the best they can, and that they can do anything they put their mind too. I never want them to feel like they can’t achieve anything. I will makes sure they know that mistakes are OK and that everyone makes them. I want them to never give up on their dreams. Dreams keep them going, and no matter what, even if their dreams change, they'll make it if they keep trying. If you want to make your dreams happen, they'll happen if you keep motivating yourself, and allow others to help you along the way.

Examining Depth and Rigor in the Classroom

As teachers, we want our students to go through the steps and understand what it is that we’re teaching them. We want them to be able to take what we’ve given them, and put it to the test in recreating the content in their own way, whether it be a project or helping other students simply understand. In order to do this, we can have help and use different ways of making sure that our students use their full brain capacity. 

Webb’s Depth of Knowledge (DOK) has four levels that educators go through to educate their students: Recall and Reproduction, Basic Application of Skills and Concepts, Strategic Thinking, and Extended Thinking. Bloom’s Taxonomy is another set of objectives that educators set for students: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create.

Webb’s Depth of Knowledge and Bloom’s Taxonomy are both large ideas within the schools. They each tell us what can be done on each level of learning and understanding. With both of these concepts, they both require you to remember what it was that you learned, and do your best to show that you understand it. They require you to apply the skills that you learned, and analyze to have a deeper understanding. They require you to evaluate and to use strategic thinking and reasoning. Then, lastly, they require you to put your knowledge to the test and create something to show that you have an extensive amount of knowledge about the particular topic. 

Webb’s DOK and Bloom’s Taxonomy are essentially full of the same ideas, and that effects my way of teaching. Bloom’s Taxonomy is more well known, as far as my education goes, and there are more steps to get the students to the understanding that we, as teachers, desire for them. Webb’s DOK takes Bloom’s Taxonomy and includes almost all of those dimensions within the four levels that Webb has. In order to be successful in the classroom as an educator, I need to make sure that I fully understand how Bloom’s Taxonomy correlates to Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. We need to look at the DOK not as a target, but a ceiling. This isn’t something that we aim for, because if it was a target, there’s a chance that we could never reach it.

There will be new strategies and information that I will need to obtain in order to continue making sure my students have the tools they need to succeed. For example, in regards to teaching writing, we will need to start them with brainstorming, and recalling the right vocabulary that they need for that specific assignment. Students write what they know, and what they learn. We could give them proper worksheets to help them brainstorm their thoughts. We can give them worksheets that would help with organizing the structure of their paper that they are writing, and keep track of their notes that they use. We could work with peer editing, where the students could work on their editing and revising skills. With the help of other students and their teacher, they are able to see if their paper they’re writing makes sense, or that their is a flow to it. They can make sure that proper grammar and punctuation are used. In the end, they’ll be able to create a paper that they worked through the levels for. 

Teaching students with Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, I believe, could be a bit more complex, but more beneficial for the educators and the students. It sets the students up to think deeper, essentially. It takes them deeper than the surface, and the deeper the thinking, the better. When leading students in discussions, we want them to be rigorous. We want them to participate because this discussion is about something they know, and something they are familiar with, because they have be taught it. Before discussions, start talking to your students about the content. Get their memory going, and have them throw out related terms, and go from there. Before the start of a new lesson, see what your students know about it. Not everyone has the same depth of knowledge, but we, as educators, can try and get them there.

Navigating the Teacher Life

Hello and Welcome!

My name is Ashley Fischer, and I am a graduate student at National University. I am working on my Master's in Education, as well as a credential in Primary Education. I graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with my Bachelors in English with an emphasis in Literature and Language. I am 25 years old, and i reside in Huntington Beach, CA. Since I was a little girl, being a teacher was always the dream. I've worked in many classrooms, mostly as an aide or an observer. I used to teach Sunday mornings at my church, in the 1st-4th grade classroom. Tutoring has also been in my line of work for as long as I can remember. 

As a teacher, I like to pay attention as much as I can to each student, focus on how they each learn differently, because let's face it, everyone has a different learning style. It will be a rare day when you have a classroom full of students who all learn by just studying a text book. Every student has a different intelligence, and some learn better by doing, by reading, or by example. By trying to focus on how they learn, I can adapt my lessons to their needs. Some days can be more geared towards those who learn by doing, and other days can be geared towards those who learn better by reading and studying. In my experience, I've seen that group projects work very well with all ages of students. 

Being around students and being able to work with them makes me INCREDIBLY happy and excited. When working with students, seeing them finally understand that concept that they didn't before, is remarkable. You see the light in their eyes and they get excited when happens. I am upbeat, and always ready for a challenge. 

After taking a teaching and learning style questionnaire, I found out a lot about my learning and teaching styles, but most of while I already knew. I found that I have a pretty equal balance between the different styles: active and reflective learners, sensing and intuitive learners, visual and verbal learners, and sequential and global learners. By having an equal balance between all of these, I am able to have a strong understanding of how to go about approaching my students. In order for them to succeed, with my help, I need to know how they learn best, and what makes sense to them. It will make the classroom a more exciting environment, and it will help the students succeed, when I have the a better understanding of who I am teaching.

The more I learn, and the more I experience time in the classroom with students, the more excited I am about teaching them. Everyday will be a new adventure, and it is so exciting. It's an adventure I'm so excited to be apart of.