EDU 292A: RESEARCH AND METHODS FOR TEACHING SECONDARY ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

The EDU 292A course taught me so much and I feel it really gave me a strong foundation for beginning my teaching journey. It is kind of incredible to consider the level of growth that can occur in only six weeks when you are in a supportive environment. When I entered the course, and the program as a whole, I felt confident in my desire to be a teacher, but I doubted my actual abilities and felt waves of imposter syndrome when I thought about being in a classroom where I was responsible for others’ learning. Within this course though, I learned that those concerns are okay, they mean that I care. Those trepidations, however, do have to be followed up with work and preparation and study, so that I can become the teacher I want to be, or at least, feel that I am on my way. 

In terms of academics, I appreciated the readings that focused on language development and acquisition, such as Accelerating Academic English by Robin Scarella. I felt this reading really gave a good technical and thought provoking perspective on teaching ELA. 

However, the biggest takeaway that I have after completing this course is probably that there is no one way to be a teacher. What I mean by that is, that when I entered the course I assumed we’d be instructed on how to be good, engaging teachers. That we’d be told, “the right way to teach”. After this course, I believe the objective was to give us tools as emerging teachers, to make our teaching style as effective and engaging as possible. The more teachers I observe, the more I talk with my cohort members, the more I realize we are all so human and so unique, and that is going to be reflected in the way we teach. More than that, all of those different personalities translating into different teaching styles, is a good thing. No two students learn the same way- so why would we want all teachers to teach the same way? This has been a really pivotal and confidence boosting realization for me. It allowed me to remove from myself the pressure to teach “the right way” and made me see that I can be myself and teach. That I should be myself when I teach. I am going to be a great teacher, because of my individualistic traits, especially when I combine them with the strategies provided in this course.

At the conclusion of the course my biggest remaining concerns or questions revolve mostly around classroom management and unit/lesson planning. I feel like I have read and received so much interesting and insightful information on effective pedagogy. However, I’d really like to move a little bit away from larger philosophical ideas of teaching and learning and begin to actually discuss more how those ideas can be practically applied within the classroom. Because reading about a strategy, in my experience so far as a student teacher, can be very different from actually teaching it. All the pedagogy we’ve encountered and discussed in this course I feel was completely relevant and worthwhile, I just think for the sake of my confidence’s continued growth it would be very beneficial to go deeper into conversations about practical application and planning. 

In this course, the aspect of class that helped me the most to make sense of the material was my colleagues. I really think I was the most engaged and learned the most when I was allowed to engage in group discussions with the rest of the cohort. Class discussion both opened me up to new ideas and helped me synthesize my own thoughts on the material, by having to explain it to others. This cohort is very supportive and close and incredibly insightful. We all have these amazing and unique perspectives, based on our individual teaching personalities and student teaching experiences. Our group discussions are a great resource and I am hopeful that in future courses we will be able to engage with each other further.

Also, I found Professor Holmes to be warm and engaging and a great presenter of the course material. I know the whole English cohort views her as a great resource. She helped us take what could have been a very overwhelming experience- starting this intensive teaching program- and make it (while still slightly overwhelming) more of a welcoming experience. We’ve just stuck one toe into the pool that will become our experiences throughout the rest of the school year- and I am ready to jump the rest of the way in!