Course Reflection 6/27/2010

While learning in the past eight weeks, I have had many new revelations about teaching new literacy skills and the direction I would like to see my teaching practices progress. The most striking revelation I had about teaching new literacy skills would be how my students would be more hands on using this style of learning. The knowledge and experience gained in this course will influence my teaching practices going forward. One professional development goal I would like to pursue that builds upon my learning during this course and develops my own literacy or technology skills would be to work with other teachers in my department to create several quality inquiry based lessons to use with our current curriculum.
The idea that kept popping up in my head while creating my inquiry based lesson plan was how I was becoming the facilitator while the students were becoming the educators. I like this transfer of power. I constantly wonder if my students are learning and retaining the information. This style of learning puts more in the hands of the students. By the end of an inquiry based unit, a student should be able to tell you the ends and outs of their original questions. This style of learning helps free teachers up to spend more time assessing rather than presenting. One area I could really use some improvement on would be giving quality comments to students. This style helps free me up to give each student proper feedback.
The knowledge and experience gained in this course will influence my teaching practices going forward. After creating a successful inquiry based lesson, I gained confidence to create new lessons based on my current curriculum. I would like to add a few of these lessons during each major theme used during the course of a school year. I really learned a lot about assessment tools that could be used while each student is developing their understanding of specific concepts. I intend on using more checklists, conferences, and final activities during lessons in my classroom.
One professional development goal I would like to pursue that builds upon my learning in this course and develops my own information literacy or technology skills would be to work with other teachers in my department to create several quality inquiry based lessons to use with our current curriculum. While creating the inquiry based unit during this course, I felt like a kid on a bike with training wheels. I was never quite sure if I was doing it right until I got feedback from the professor. Now, I feel like I can ride the bike without the training wheels. I feel comfortable creating another lesson that fits my classroom curriculum. My first step would be to approach my department during upcoming in-services. I plan on passing on the information I have learned in this course. I hope to use ideas like how inquiry based learning puts more power in the hands of the students, they retain more doing this type of learning, and this style opens up more time for creating teacher feedback. I hope to get at least two others to join me in creating quality lessons for the future. I will make my lesson created in this class available to my colleagues. I plan on using my time during upcoming in-services to develop new plans with my colleagues to be used this next school year.
The past eight weeks have really helped me understand a new type of teaching that can really improve learning in my classroom. I hope to spend less time presenting information in the future and more time giving quality feedback to my students. Right now, my confidence level is really up for creating more quality inquiry based lessons. I hope to rope a few of my colleagues into developing more inquiry based plans to help add our students and our classrooms.