Skip to main content

UMF Portfolio Presentation


Yesterday, I attended the Student Teaching Portfolio presentations. This is a biannual event in which pre-professional teachers nearing the end of their program at UMF reflect and present on the time they spent in the field. It’s also an opportunity for other students in the program to collaborate with and get advice from these “student teachers."

The first person I spoke with was an elementary education major working in Lewiston. She shared with me the work she had done over the period of her student teaching and some resources she had found particularly helpful in her kindergarten classroom. While much of her work was specific to her concentration and not necessarily applicable, her teaching philosophy stood out to me. She built her philosophy around the Stanley Kubrick quote, "I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker." 

Another person I visited was a math concentration working in an elementary school. We also exchanged resources and discussed our experiences in the field. Our discussion revolved around getting to know our students. I discussed the worksheets my mentor teacher gives her students, and she showed me the letter she sent out to parents at the beginning of her placement.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The End of The Line...

The Fall 2018 session of practicum is reaching a close. This means saying goodbye (for now) to our professors, our classmates, and our students. To reflect on my semester, I created a video about my experience and what I've learned. (Because if a picture's worth a thousand words, imagine what a video is worth.*) You can view the video here:  https://www.powtoon.com/online-presentation/c3QYXPMBmUd/?mode=movie#/ *Also because it was a required part of the assignment; not gonna lie.
Post a Comment
Read more

Padlet, Smithsonian, and MoMA

For those of you that don't know, I am currently building a unit for an English literature class for the first time. There are a lot of things I am trying to take into consideration with it, so I'm constantly altering in little (or big) ways. Right now, I'm pretty confident in my unit sketch, which encompasses a number of standards and learning experiences. For the purposes of my classes, I have focused primarily on three major assessments for the unit. Recently, I made a Padlet to express these assessments using images of displays from MoMA and Smithsonian . I approached this as an opportunity to test out Padlet as a potential technology to use in the classroom and I certainly did learn about the program. I was surprised by the MoMA and Smithsonian websites, though. These websites are very well-curated and are a hidden gem of a resource. The display can be used in a way similar to how I used them in this Padlet, as writing prompts, or for a multitude of other uses in an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Embedded Formative Assessment

In  Embedded Formative Assessment, Dylan Wiliam makes the case for formative assessment as the way to improve the learning of all students. He first makes this case by supporting his assertions with statistical evidence. This evidence is followed by specific strategies he considers successful and a discussion of their benefits and disadvantages of each. Beyond formative assessment, there were many themes that persisted through the book, many of which are summarized on my Twitter by chapter ( 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ). In each chapter, he addresses a certain aspect of effective formative assessment in practice. Although I think it is important to have a holistic view of the classroom and the many things educators must do for their students, Wiliam makes a persuasive case for the power of formative assessment as a way to engage students and inform future instruction. Something I especially enjoyed about Wiliam's book was his recommendations of specific strategies in each chapter. M...
Post a Comment
Read more