Week 3 - Tracie Whelan - 3 Important Q's regarding lit instruction

3 Important questions* regarding your literacy instruction:

What can I do? (agency)

What can I do? (readiness)

What can I do? (action)

*Keep these questions in mind!

1. What type of professional dilemmas do you anticipate needing to manage this year in relation to developing your professional identity, building strong teacher-student relationships, constructing relevant curriculum or assessing students in meaningful and productive ways?

2. Give specific examples of areas where you feel confident in your planning, teaching, and assessing and areas you feel you need to learn more about. Given what you know so far about your classroom context, what opportunities might be available to you for learning this year? What ideas do you have about how you might want to ‘finesse’ or ‘hybridize’ your literacy practices?

 

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 Personal response:

1. In terms of professional dilemmas, or who I want to be as a teacher I believe I will need to work most on differentiation while constructing curriculum this school year. I am in a very diverse classroom both culturally and academically. I hope to find a job in a similar school with a similar amount of diversity. With diversity many times comes the need for differentiation in instruction. Through observation this year I hope to gain more knowledge of strategies used for differentiation.

2. I feel confident about assessing my students. I think I will be able to gauge how to assess them and understand what they have learned. I have had experience both assessing and interpreting assessments at the first grade level (my current grade level). I also feel confident that I can build strong teacher-student relationships. In previous experiences I believe I managed to build these types of relationships.
Given my classroom context and resources available I feel that I will have the opportunity to learn a great deal. My classroom has a SmartBoard and my CT has already told me I will get the opportunity to create my own lessons using the software. I will additionally learn how to incorporate IPads in the classroom as well as laptop computers.
In terms of 'finessing' my literacy practices I think the Novi school district makes it very easy for new teachers. This year they launches Atlas Rubicon. All of Oakland Public Schools have access to this system which documents the designated curriculum and a broad schedule for when to teach each content. Novi took this system further and personalized it to their own district and in a way "hybridized' the curriculum. I think there are always tweaks you will want to make for your particular students, however I feel that this system does a wonderful job laying out the basics.