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

Fall Quarter 2021
Instructed by Dr. Pauline Holmes

This quarter as a whole has stretched me, as both a fledgling educator and as a person, in so many ways. I have unlearned and then relearned much of what I believed initially about education. I am overall more open-minded and more patient. I am also much more overworked! However, the moments within my student-teaching practice where I have felt that I was truly helping students, using the practices I’ve learned this quarter, have been incredibly affirming. I feel much more confident as a teacher and I feel that even though there is so much room for growth remaining, I am on the right track. 

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In terms of this course in particular, I feel I have learned a lot regarding classroom management and the establishment of class norms. Though in the summer session I outlined a classroom management plan, things are much different in practice versus in theory. The 6th graders I was placed with at the time of this course, truly put me to the test. A great example of this occurred during the Digital Tool Implementation project, where I attempted to introduce my 6th graders to Jamboard as a formative assessment. There were classroom management issues at every step of the implementation process. I struggled with the frustrations these challenges brought because I have never really seen myself as a disciplinarian. I always had assumed I’d discipline intuitively by providing agreed upon class norms and sharing an environment of honesty and mutual respect with my students. The 6th graders have agreed upon class norms, they are generally respectful, and I know they appreciate when I discuss issues with them genuinely, instead of lecturing them. However, they still struggled with following my directions and I still struggled with holding them accountable. The biggest lesson learned, for me, in the process of the Digital Tool Implementation project, is that sometimes you need to be strict and structured in order to set your students up for success and best serve them. If the expectations and structure of the activity are clear, then students must be held to them. This was practice in patience building and in using my voice as a teacher to not just ask students for their focus and maturity, but to demand it. I owe a lot of what I learned during this project to my resident teacher, who assured me that I wasn’t evil or cruel for holding students up to set behavioral expectations, and that in fact I was doing them an academic and communal disservice if I didn’t. By the end of the quarter, I have made great strides in terms of understanding the minutia involved in classroom management, and there are many tips and tricks I have learned.

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I also this quarter began to learn about unit planning and how to intuitively plan out learning progressions. Moving forward into winter quarter, I’d like to expand on my planning practices and learn how to plan out multiple units so that they work synergistically over the course of the semester.

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Overall I enjoyed the readings and assignments completed in this course during fall quarter. The biggest thing I gained from the work in this course during fall quarter is confidence. During the summer session I still felt like an imposter in the classroom, but having the opportunity to try out theoretical strategies within the classroom gave practical context to the information I’d be absorbing. I see myself more and more as a teacher each day!