My Teaching Experience from Student to Professional with Lesson Plans

Bonjour! Currently I am almost finished getting my Masters of Arts in Secondary Education, specializing in French. I need to do student teaching and then I will be done! In the meantime, I’ve been trying to get a job in the Education field, but to no avail. Soon enough, I suppose.

I love French and languages, and I love learning and learning about learning (metacognition). I am lucky to have received a comprehensive and varied education and feel pretty positive about it overall. The less than positive areas are what bring me to the teaching field. Yes, I know it will be challenging (and probably lower pay than it’s worth). I don’t care for now. I will in a few months, but I foresee a long-term future goal of opening my own school or language learning center someday.

This site will follow me on this journey of going from being a student, to being a professional, teaching French, and all the ups and downs along the way. Right now I’m trying to add a lot of educational theory onto the site. I did not write it myself, so I take no credit, and a lot of it is from notes or workbooks from school, so if any author sees something they wrote and has an issue with me sharing it, please contact me and I will be happy to take it down.

Merci to one and all who stop by, leave a comment, and hopefully you will learn something about teaching or French or learning itself!

Subject: The Nature of the Universe

Knowledge- recall the planets
Comprehension- discuss how the planets remain in orbit
Application- explain how gravity from the moon affects tides
Analysis- compare conditions on different planets
Synthesis- make a model in proportion
Evaluation- critique other classmates’ models for accuracy

Essentialism- (social behaviorist) back to the basics, essential knowledge, core subjects
-Goal is to make students productive members of society
-Essential body of knowledge, timeless core (does adapt to given time period)
-All students need core of knowledge regardless of individual needs
-Classroom is structured, sterile, assigned seating
-Involved lower levels of Bloom, moving towards analysis
-Facts, Knowledge, Comprehension
-Instructional activities- direct instruction, teacher-centered, passive
-Assessment- objective, norm-referenced, qualifiable
-Student-teacher dynamic- formal
-Discreet knowledge- over-arching

Perennialism (intellectual traditionalist)
-Find great works and traditions relevant, close to essentialism but more student-centered
-Cultivation of intellect is highest priority
-Need to develop minds to gain more knowledge
-Several basic ideas
*Students need to gain understanding to the ideas of Western civilization; can be applied to whole era
*Teach principles important to everyone throughout the world, that do not change
*Develop the ability for rational thought in students’ minds

Progressivism (experientialist)
-living is learning
-moral response attitude
-students learn by experiencing
-face a situation, have a response, then integrate it into one’s character
- create “worthy members of society” who have “real-world skills”
-see dichotomy- books/library vs. actual living “all-around living”
-still use books, but not textbooks
-the focus is on change
-student-centered
-instructional method- often use the scientific method so students can study matter and events systematically and first-hand, group work, and cooperative learning

Reconstructionism (critical pedagogy)
-education evokes social change/reform
-emphasizes addressing social issues
-curriculum is based on taking action on today’s social problems
-they believe that change is necessary to overcome society’s problems; change is the way “to overcome oppression and improve human systems” **
-”curriculum focuses on student experience and taking social action on real problems, such as violence, hunger, international terrorism, inflation, and inequality” **
-instructional methods- inquiry and group discussion, community-based learning

———————–
** from “Philosophical Perspectives in Education“

Teachers must take into consideration all aspects of their intended student population. There are many arenas to think about, and many developmental landmarks occurring in K-12 Education. Consider where the students are at in these fields:

• Physical
• Intellectual
• Emotional
• Social
• Psychological
• Personal challenges

I will give my personal response to these, concerning upper-level high school students (Grades 11 & 12, ages 17-18):

• Physical- formal operations, mostly through big transformative physical years
• Intellectual- beginning of adulthood, critical thinking continuing to develop
• Emotional- even though they are reaching the end of the “teenage years”, there is still a lot of drama going on, perhaps one of the biggest factors- intimate relationships, what to do with life after graduating
• Social- their identity continues to form and they can be very self-conscious, also dealing with issues of authority and social justice
• Psychological- psychological world is important, not as much to worry about physically
• Personal challenges- future dilemmas, relationships, thinking critically about their morals and values

School as a Temple- moral community, MORE to come

School as a Factory- production unit, Does not permit questioning basic authority, Preordained values and goals, Main concern is efficiency, Success is judged by testing outputs

School as a Town Meeting- political arena, Constructivist approach, Goals are diverse, Appeals to morality and efficiency are only part of the process, Success is measured by having and maintaining power: control of available resources

-EBD students have low to average IQs
-Have difficulty with peers
-Have difficulty with completing tasks
-Poor problem-solving skills, poor negotiating skills
-Standardized tests cannot effectively assess exceptional students’ abilities: just as teaching must be individualized and meaningful to the particular student, the assessment must be as well.

How teachers can assist students with EBDs in the classroom:
-Structured environment with clear boundaries
-Provide safety
-Behavior modification
-Serve challenges while allowing successes
-Consistency
-Flexibility
-Emotionally supportive
-Provide choices allowing some control over their environment

-Teaching generalization is difficult- teach literally and use multiple example to enforce
-Focus on child’s interests and entertain them (Trains in Math, Trains in English, if they like trains, use them as an entry point to teach the overall concept)
-Use technology to teach
-Interpretation is literal by autistic students- Be literal to avoid misinterpretation, avoid idioms
-Enhance appropriate behaviors while decreasing inappropriate behaviors
-Students have difficulty with organizational skills- strategies include giving assignments at home using small, specific steps
-Students have problems with abstract and conceptual thinking- strategies include: visual cues, drawings, written words, avoid essay-type questions, be concrete
-Avoid verbal overload
-Uneven skills development is a hallmark of autism, for example, a math whiz may not be able to make change out of a cash register- so be cautious and aware of this when making assignments!

I had the pleasure of finding a highly aesthetic representation of these 3 perspectives found on Joan Wink’s site:

*Transmission

*Generative

*Formative

image can be found published in:
(Wink, Joan. Critical pedagogy: Notes from the real world, 2005, 3/e, pp. 178-180)

Transmission- teacher transmits information directly into students, also known as the banking theory (Freire supports this theory)

Generative- students are more involved in learning, teacher-student relationship is more interactive, and more student questions are answered. But there still remains more to be learned and understood, because the teacher is still explaining about learning instead of having the students make it happen through creating real-life situations.

Transformative- this is the most effective type of learning, though it rarely occurs in classrooms because it can be difficult for teachers to incorporate. Teacher is a partner in the learning practice as learning leaves the traditional classroom environment and real-world learning occurs. Students take knowledge they learn and transform it into new ideas and are creatively involved and interested.

These instructional strategies have been proven through research to help students learn more effectively. Incorporating and varying these strategies in lessons can enrich the learning process and guarantee more successful outcomes.

1) Identify similarities and differences
2) Summarizing and note-taking
3) Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
4) Homework and guided practice
5) Non-linguistic representations (advanced organizers)
6) Cooperative learning
7) Setting goals and providing feedback
8 ) Generating and testing hypotheses
9) Activating prior knowledge
10) Prompting
11) Probing
12) Scaffolding
13) Wait-time
14) Reinforcement
15) Non-verbal communication