Educational Psychology

Being a good and effective teacher can mean different things to different people, but I believe there are some universal traits of all good teachers. The first one being passionate. Teachers must be very passionate about what they do in order to continuously work their hardest day in and day out to ensure they are teaching the best that they can. Students learn best from teachers who are enthusiastic about their content area and are consistently excited to teach.  Another trait of good teachers is being engaging. No significant learning can take place without proper student engagement, which usually takes more than a lecture to get students properly engaged. These aspects of good teachers I believed at the beginning of the semester and still agree with now. Something that changed in my definition of good teachers is that they are very knowledgeable and well informed. This includes an expertise in their specific content area, but also knowledge on current events, new technology and teaching techniques, issues on identities such as race/ethnicity/socioeconomic status/ability, etc. Teachers can teach their students more than just math, for example. There are many other lessons and skills that can be brought into the classroom.

This course has definitely helped me prepare for most of the teacher standards. One in particular that stood out to me was number 3: “Teachers understand that children learn differently. The teacher understands how pupils differ in their approaches to learning and the barriers that impede learning and can adapt instruction to meet the diverse needs of pupils, including those with disabilities and exceptionalities” I feel like a decent portion of our course was dedicated to learning this standard. We learned so much about diversity of students in more aspects than just race, such as ability, socioeconomic status and more, and how these differences do have an impact on how students learn. We learned a lot about how we as educators must be flexible and figure out lesson plans and assessments that can be fitted and modified to students with different academic needs.

The most significant thing I have learned this semester that will help prepare me for my future career as a teacher, is probably how to be more understanding of students. By this I mean I learned the importance of getting to know my students on a more personal level in order to better manage the classroom and figure out what does and doesn’t work for them. Some students may lack motivation, concentration, basic skills, etc., but it probably is not their fault so it is our job as educators to figure out the causes and how we can better help them to learn, as opposed to blaming the student for their behavior. I got to practice this a lot in my O&P. I would get frustrated at times because it seemed like the kids couldn’t care less what we were doing in class. I had to take a step back to reflect on why this might be and what these kids could be going through to realize how I could get them more engaged and motivated.

Finally, how I plan to prepare my online identity for future employers is honestly not something I have totally thought out. I did enjoy this blogging process over the course of the semester so continuing on with this is definitely something I wish to do. Another idea could be a ePortfolio with a few of the projects and papers I am most proud of that I have completed over the course of my college career. I’m not sure what other technology or resources are out there for this type of thing, but I would like to further explore this in the future and see what other kinds of way I could digitally display some of my work and ideas for the job market. I know LinkedIn is a very popular site for making a profile, attaching resumes and portfolios, and seeking out future employers through so maybe that is something I could also look into for the future.