Teaching Application Questions
Feel free to correct, offer suggestions, or in any other way help me to revise this by commenting. Right now it's two pages in Word, and I'd like to get it down to one. The trouble is, I really don't know how. Jake says not to worry about it, but part of me doesn't think that the people going over my application will read everything I wrote if it's more than a page.
What the application says:
Professional Growth
Submit a brief summary on a separate sheet of paper for each of the following areas.
a. Give an example of a specific problem you have solved and the processes used.
While I was student teaching on a sixth grade team and my host teacher was absent, I was approached by several students throughout a school day with information about two students who were supposedly copying down student identification numbers (used in the library and cafeteria) off of another teacher’s roster. The problem was clear to me; these students, if what I was being told was true, were committing identity theft.
I wrote down all of the information that I was given by the students as they came to me, including their names and the class period during which they made their report. As the information I was gathering started to pile up, I asked students, without naming names of who else had come to me, to verify other reports.
I did not know all of the students very well because I was only a student teacher, so I was unsure how reliable the students that came to me were. In order to evaluate the information that I had, I went to the other teachers on the team, including the other student teacher, and asked them to confirm, refute, or add to the information I had gathered from the students as well as share whether or not those students could be believed.
Once I had verified the information, I worked with the other teachers on the team in order to come up with a solution. The accused student was a repeat offender who had been suspended multiple times. We could have handled it within the team, handed it over to the dean and principal, or waited until my host teacher (the team leader) returned and had him deal weigh in and possibly handle it himself.
Ultimately, given the severity of the offense, we decided to report the incident to the dean and principal. I and the other teachers each wrote a letter explaining what we had witnessed or had reported to us, keeping our own opinions as to what disciplinary action we might have wanted to see happen out of it. In addition to this, the incident made us aware that the rosters of our advisories that were taped to our doors had students’ identification numbers on them. As soon as we discovered this, we removed them from the doors and either printed off new, altered copies, or cut away the numbers from the old ones.
b. How do you plan to address the diverse educational needs of your students?
Learning styles can be as unique as the learner, but the same can be said of teaching styles and teachers. Not everyone learns the same way, and during my early field experiences and student teaching I tried to vary my teaching methods in order to accommodate different kinds of learners. I would lecture a little every time new material had to be presented, but I would reinforce that material as often as I could with a game, puzzle, or worksheet. I would also try to give students as many creative outlets as I could in a unit in order to make the material more meaningful by applying it to their own lives in some way; however, during my student teaching I learned that not all students feel comfortable with assignments that call for such expressive work, and so I had to balance it with other assignments. The other issue I came across was plagiarism. Some students thought it was easier to steal poems posted on the internet and claim them as their own rather than try to write something original. All the same, no teaching strategy can be set in stone, and so I plan to continue to use and refine my various methods in order to match as many different learning styles as possible.
c. What do you consider to be the five most critical attributes of successful educators?
First and foremost, teachers should be immediate, or psychologically available, for their students. This can be as simple as being on time, using appropriate body language, attending extra-curricular activities, or spending time with a student. Immediacy behaviors can also be verbal (varying voice pitch, volume, and tempo) and improve perceptions of a teacher’s credibility, therefore motivating students to study and do well.
Along with immediacy, teachers should have a sense of humor in and out of the classroom. A joke can liven up a lecture or make students feel more comfortable in group discussion. That comfortable environment helps teachers build a rapport with students in addition to fostering a more enjoyable and effective learning experience.
Successful teachers also have to be flexible. Schedules often change due to inclement weather, extra-curricular events, and day to day classroom interruption. A teacher’s ability to adjust plans is critical. Flexibility also applies to a teacher’s interaction with students when it comes to late and missing work. Teachers should not bend over backwards to accommodate students in this regard, but they should not be extremely rigid either.
While a teacher can be approachable, amusing, and adaptable, if they do not have knowledge to pass on to their students, their efforts are in vain. However, while teachers should know their subject as well as possible, they should not be limited to it. A wide knowledge base allows a teacher to make interdisciplinary connections as well as connections to aspects of the students’ everyday lives. Bits of trivia, or “Jeopardy knowledge,” can provide a humorous and refreshing treat without halting or hindering the transfer of knowledge.
Finally, teachers must be engaging. Teaching is partly performance in that teachers must keep their students’ attention. A trapped audience is hard to keep focused, but one way to do so is to be entertaining, try and make the content fun, or actively engage students with activities or discussion instead of simply giving a lecture.
What the application says:
Professional Growth
Submit a brief summary on a separate sheet of paper for each of the following areas.
a. Give an example of a specific problem you have solved and the processes used.
While I was student teaching on a sixth grade team and my host teacher was absent, I was approached by several students throughout a school day with information about two students who were supposedly copying down student identification numbers (used in the library and cafeteria) off of another teacher’s roster. The problem was clear to me; these students, if what I was being told was true, were committing identity theft.
I wrote down all of the information that I was given by the students as they came to me, including their names and the class period during which they made their report. As the information I was gathering started to pile up, I asked students, without naming names of who else had come to me, to verify other reports.
I did not know all of the students very well because I was only a student teacher, so I was unsure how reliable the students that came to me were. In order to evaluate the information that I had, I went to the other teachers on the team, including the other student teacher, and asked them to confirm, refute, or add to the information I had gathered from the students as well as share whether or not those students could be believed.
Once I had verified the information, I worked with the other teachers on the team in order to come up with a solution. The accused student was a repeat offender who had been suspended multiple times. We could have handled it within the team, handed it over to the dean and principal, or waited until my host teacher (the team leader) returned and had him deal weigh in and possibly handle it himself.
Ultimately, given the severity of the offense, we decided to report the incident to the dean and principal. I and the other teachers each wrote a letter explaining what we had witnessed or had reported to us, keeping our own opinions as to what disciplinary action we might have wanted to see happen out of it. In addition to this, the incident made us aware that the rosters of our advisories that were taped to our doors had students’ identification numbers on them. As soon as we discovered this, we removed them from the doors and either printed off new, altered copies, or cut away the numbers from the old ones.
b. How do you plan to address the diverse educational needs of your students?
Learning styles can be as unique as the learner, but the same can be said of teaching styles and teachers. Not everyone learns the same way, and during my early field experiences and student teaching I tried to vary my teaching methods in order to accommodate different kinds of learners. I would lecture a little every time new material had to be presented, but I would reinforce that material as often as I could with a game, puzzle, or worksheet. I would also try to give students as many creative outlets as I could in a unit in order to make the material more meaningful by applying it to their own lives in some way; however, during my student teaching I learned that not all students feel comfortable with assignments that call for such expressive work, and so I had to balance it with other assignments. The other issue I came across was plagiarism. Some students thought it was easier to steal poems posted on the internet and claim them as their own rather than try to write something original. All the same, no teaching strategy can be set in stone, and so I plan to continue to use and refine my various methods in order to match as many different learning styles as possible.
c. What do you consider to be the five most critical attributes of successful educators?
First and foremost, teachers should be immediate, or psychologically available, for their students. This can be as simple as being on time, using appropriate body language, attending extra-curricular activities, or spending time with a student. Immediacy behaviors can also be verbal (varying voice pitch, volume, and tempo) and improve perceptions of a teacher’s credibility, therefore motivating students to study and do well.
Along with immediacy, teachers should have a sense of humor in and out of the classroom. A joke can liven up a lecture or make students feel more comfortable in group discussion. That comfortable environment helps teachers build a rapport with students in addition to fostering a more enjoyable and effective learning experience.
Successful teachers also have to be flexible. Schedules often change due to inclement weather, extra-curricular events, and day to day classroom interruption. A teacher’s ability to adjust plans is critical. Flexibility also applies to a teacher’s interaction with students when it comes to late and missing work. Teachers should not bend over backwards to accommodate students in this regard, but they should not be extremely rigid either.
While a teacher can be approachable, amusing, and adaptable, if they do not have knowledge to pass on to their students, their efforts are in vain. However, while teachers should know their subject as well as possible, they should not be limited to it. A wide knowledge base allows a teacher to make interdisciplinary connections as well as connections to aspects of the students’ everyday lives. Bits of trivia, or “Jeopardy knowledge,” can provide a humorous and refreshing treat without halting or hindering the transfer of knowledge.
Finally, teachers must be engaging. Teaching is partly performance in that teachers must keep their students’ attention. A trapped audience is hard to keep focused, but one way to do so is to be entertaining, try and make the content fun, or actively engage students with activities or discussion instead of simply giving a lecture.