I believe that my efforts to educate the whole child has definitely increased since the start of this course. Focusing on educating the whole child is definitely the key to helping students find value in the time that they are spending in my classroom. Before this course my only goals in my classroom was to help students by creating a positive learning environment and being honest with them when it came to math concepts. I realize that if students can see that I am trying to help them learn skills that will move them forward in life after high school, they will be more receptive while I'm covering my content. Spending time in the beginning of class to talk about potential career paths that students could take would make a big difference and give my students direction.
This course was really awesome and I felt inspired to step up my teaching as a teacher. I definitely plan on giving my students more information that will help them with life during my time with them along with the content.
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In order to consider yourself digitally literate, I believe that one must have the ability to use electronic devices to self teach yourself anything while being respectful to everyone on the platform. The most powerful thing to come from being digitally literate is having the ability to learn anything you set your mind too. Nowadays you can learn how to find material, lessons, examples, tutorials, or instructions from things like baking a cake, to changing the transmission on a car. One of the main struggles students face on becoming Digitally Literate is how to research something. I do my best to help my student in learning how to find which key words to search for and where to go to find help. We spend time in class talking about what words would be best to google or search on youtube if we are struggling on the homework, and we write them down.
Students also need to focus on how to work together with someone through digital formats in order to be digitally literate. Students are becoming much more familiar with this as technology is more integrated in the classroom. I was pleasantly surprised earlier this year when I had students who were able to create a google doc and share it with me on their own. Each year I make sure to allow my character to show a little more to my students. I think it has to do with how confident I am becoming as an educator, and therefor I'm more at ease when I'm teaching lessons. I want to try to include more moments in my classroom where my students and I can discuss real life problems and struggles. I want them to have the confidence that they can bring certain topics up in the classroom knowing that my classroom is an environment in which they know they can receive some help or advice.
In order to do this I understand that it will first require me to share some of my stories and experience to the students when appropriate. I'm fortunate to have been raised in the same type of environment as most of my students. There are many parts of my childhood in which we can relate to each other. So far my strategy has been working, and I have had a good number of students come to me to seek advice, and I can only hope it continues to grow. It really is awesome when students see that you care about them. The first part of this is definitely creating a sense of community and family within the classroom. Most of the barriers that my students face are financial and language. There are currently resources on campus that have to do with helping students in both of these areas. It is known as HealthyStart and students can get help with basic need and receive counseling from there. I do my best as an educator to help my students out by keeping both their financial status and current language development level in mind when creating and teaching lessons. Teaching them of proper ways to communicate can go a long way in terms of being successful after they leave the high school.
I also do my best to teach them how to handle our emotions and play out certain scenarios we might find ourselves in when appropriate. Teaching them to stop and think before acting is important for solving new math problems and handling real life situations. Most of them don't find the value in learning complex math topics, but if you can connect the thought process to real life, then they are much more attentive and willing to learn. My content standards definitely help my students be prepared for colleges by allowing them to learn some of the basic skill sets that are required for a university. If you’re going to a community college, you do still need some basics, but you could also make it if you weren’t successful in high school. The content standards do well in addressing academic skill but they lack to address real life skills.
As an educator I need to make it my duty to prepare these students for the real world. It’s my job to make my the content standards relative to students so that they can apply it themselves and value the learning. I should strive to do this, but I also have to be careful not to measure my success based on the students grades. I could possibly teach a student how to become excellent at working together with other people and thinking critically, but they might fall short in doing a math problem by themselves. I’m this case I shouldn’t be sad and find some positivity in the fact that this student has learned a life skill. In class today we talked about what school is for? The group I talked with all seemed to have the same consensus that education needs to change to better prepare our students. Currently the needs to prepare them to be successful when they leave are not being met, but it looks like theirs a new group of teachers that understand this.
There is something that I question. Throughout my time at TCSJ it feels like the idea of “education needs to change” is something that has been around for a while and has a lot of support. If we have all these people want to turn education around, why is it not happening? Who is holding it back? What’s that missing link that will make this move happen. I do feel like there’s a new wave of teachers that are younger and ready for change, and I hope it happens soon. The history of education has definitely decided what students need to learn, but it was designed in a way that would update for the current population. Our education system was designed to help prepare student for their economy and culture that they lived in. Although this is appropriate, I don’t think the system ever adapted to our current economy or culture. Students are still being prepped to work in assembly lines in a factory, rather than to be collaborators in a company or business owners.
On a more personal level, students definitely feel like they aren’t learning anything important when they are in my math classes. One of the most common questions I have to answer during the year is “Mr. Navarrete are we ever going to even use this in real life?” Truth is that more than half of them aren’t. The old system has presented us with the challenge of having a school system that students find irrelevant. I would love to be part of the move that causes the change in our school system, and I think it might be happening soon. School is a place where students should feel safe to learn academic content and life skills. This is where many students come to escape some of the harsh realities that they are facing at home. This is the place where some students come to eat. This is a place where students might be making friendships that are going to last them a life time. For students in the high school, it's a time for them to figure what their identity is as a person.
Every student has a different perception as to why they are going to school. As a teacher, it is my job to understand this and use it to help my student grow to be successful in life as much as possible. Unfortunately my students will not all succeed and learn, but I have to attempt to help them regardless. The role a teacher plays in a students life is becoming more important as time moves on, and the teachers need to be the first ones to understand this. |
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