Teacher, Teach Me How to Teach!

On Tuesday (12/4) and Thursday (12/6), I attended the student teaching portfolios event at UMF. It was great to see where I will be at the end of my program and to see the hard work the students put into their semester-long field experiences. It was great to see the range of student programs represented, from Early Childhood all to Secondary Education. For my in-field practicum seminar course, we were asked to take a selfie with two of the tables. I took pictures with two tables, both the exact same path as myself, Secondary Education Social Studies. It was a great experience attending portfolios and I am looking forward to going again in the spring.

For my class on Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, my classmates and I were asked to join the twitter conversation. Aside from the really cool things I learned in the book, I thought it was really cool to connect with my classmates to see what they were posting about the chapters along the way. Here's the link to my twitter feed to check them out: @emkessel . Chapter 1:   This chapter touched on teacher quality and how it's the backbone for the education system. In order to increase teacher quality, we need to provide support and feedback to our teachers. In the book, they talked about the presumed thought that replacement was the way to increase teacher quality. I believe that we should support our teachers in schools with continuous training, to create a more even playing field for all of our students to benefit. Chapter 2:   This chapter touched on professional development and teaching styles. Professional development opportunities allow educators to o...

Hi, I'm back! I had a great three weeks in the field. I learned a lot from my mentor and I got the opportunity to teach many lessons. I am very excited to go back in three weeks. Tonight I am back sharing some cool resources that my peers shared from their wise teachers and my own. I got the chance to go through these really cool tools and pick out my favorite things, some things that I might use in my classroom.  I like, I wish, I wonder Gallery Walk example found on bie.org  On BIE.com, many educators are talking about Project Based Learning (PBL) and how we can engage students to take pride in their own learning. Something that I really enjoyed was how educator John Larmer wrote about doing a gallery walk for his students. In some of my classes, we have done gallery walks for our projects. Most of the time we got small notes or verbal feedback about our work that might have helped us currently in that moment. This educator talked about putting all of these comment...

On Friday, my practicum classmates and I had the pleasure of attending the ACTEM education conference in Augusta. It was a powerful experience that opened my mind to some of the great tools and techniques that educators use to support their pedagogy. Not only did we get to see other teachers present, we got to present out units that we have been diligently working on so far this semester. I was able to attend an amazing presentation done by two high school co-teachers from Morse High School in Bath, Maine. They talked about how to apply co-teaching methods to their English classroom. This is something that I am learning about in my Special Education class and I was fascinated to see Maine schools putting this into play. These two educators highlighted how technology and the tools they are using are "leveling the playing field" for students in their least restrictive environment. I learned about new tools such as pear deck and how to create specialized assignments on google ...

As educators and continuous learners in our own experiences, we all thrive from feedback and knowing what is expected of us. There are people who provide us with standards that we have to teach and have our students understand, but there are also expectations that we have to live up to as educators. When thinking of being evaluated and knowing what expectations are, I think of assigned rubrics in the classroom that line up to assignments. They are great when your educator took the time to make a clear understanding of what was expected of you, as the student. As educators, we want to provide our students with tools that help guide them on the path for success.  Here is the good. This educator broke down what the students were expected to do. Expectation is the key word. If our students do not understand what they must do, we are setting them up for failure. Each category explains what tasks the student must preform to reach that level of understanding. It is clear, concise, ...