In the beginning of this class I did not know what to expect or exactly what we were going to be learning but everything that we learned has helped me to become a better teacher in so many ways. I am different mainly because of the fact that I feel much more comfortable teaching lessons, writing lessons and presenting anything in front of my peers. When it comes to me being a teacher, I have learned how important it is to make sure that you have the students attention. Lessons may not always be fun but if you can make them interesting and connect the lessons to real world situations then the students will be more than likely to get engaged in that lesson.
The thing that surprised me the most about this class was how much more confident I am with technology. I have to admit that before this class I absolutely despised working on computers for any length of time, but now I would be more likely to do things on a computer than I am to do things on paper. I have learned so much about the smart board technology (which with be critical in my teaching) and I even learned a lot about the Google docs. I did not think I would like Google docs but now I love it and I use that more than regular Microsoft word.
I think what has made the biggest impression while at the same time made me think and discover is the fact that we presented A LOT this semester. I am not always comfortable getting up in front of the class and talking about anything. I am sure that it really helped that we only had ten students in our class but I really enjoyed doing presentations and I looked forward to them when they were coming. By presenting to each other, it made us think a lot, we had to make sure that everything was perfect because the rest of the class was depending on you to learn the content. We had to teach ourselves a lot with the help from the teacher but I think that this helped us to reach higher levels of thinking more often.
When it comes to me and my own elementary school setting, I think what has helped me the most was the smart board. Before this class began I did not know anything about it. I knew it was there but I didn't realize all the potential that comes out of it. An entire unit could be taught through using the smart board and this is great because children love computers and technology and incorporating this into the lessons is vital. I know that I will be using a smart board in my own classroom to the fullest extent.
During my journey throughout this class, I can not say that one specific person helped me the most. Everyone in our class got along so well and we all made sure we were available to help each other out all the time. When we were confused about something, someone else would step up to make sure that we understood. I think that our class as a unit worked so well together and that made the experience in the classroom that much better.
I think the one thing that I was not sure about was the peer evaluation. I think that sometimes it is good to get each others feedback because two heads are better then one and my peers have been able to see things that I have missed and that helped me so much. Besides that I think that everything else should be graded by the teacher, mainly because she knows the content the best out of all of us so her opinion and feedback would be the most important.
Besides that one detail, I loved this class and it has helped me to grow from a student and has taken me another step closer to becoming a teacher.
