The mission of
I believe
that in my teaching and learning I work to respect student voice, and student
needs. Social justice and equity are at
the forefront of my values and goals in teaching and learning. I have learned that as a teacher, imposition
of my values or didactic measures are both inhumane and unsuccessful. Therefore, I have attempted, in many ways, to
ensure that my teacher candidates’ voices are engaged in the construction of
knowledge through inquiry based methods and personal reflection. Though my class is based on a clear set of
standards that are aligned with national teacher preparation standards, I know
that it is how I teach those standards that will allow them to internalize
these standards and situate them for themselves in their own lives as teachers
and learners. I use essential questions
as the guiding framework for all my syllabi and encourage teacher candidates to
contextualize all new knowledge in their own work through reflective and
autobiographical approaches of teaching and learning. As a way to model this
for my teacher candidates and as a way to more fully understand this
paradigmatic shift in my own teaching and learning, I have been doing ongoing
heuristic research on social justice and equity in a middle teacher education
program.
Otterbein
Middle Childhood Program
In keeping with
the Otterbein Teacher Education Model, the Middle Childhood Licensure Program
is dedicated to providing those preparing to teach young adolescents as well as
experienced teachers in the field with the knowledge, dispositions, and skills
needed to create educational environments that are developmentally responsive,
academically challenging, and socially equitable for young adolescents. As an
end result, our graduates will have built a set of beliefs about the purpose
and importance of middle level education that will enable them to contribute to
furthering the quality of education for young adolescents.
I believe that
the work of teacher education is not only about ensuring that teacher
candidates have knowledge and skills to teach in school settings; but, I
believe more importantly they must have the dispositions to do this work. Research clearly indicates that the most
important component involved with the success of student learning in a
classroom is the impact of the teacher.
Research also shows that teachers are one of the few professionals who
find themselves leaving their profession after short periods because of
dissatisfaction with their work. This
dissatisfaction is equated directly to the attitude teachers have about
themselves, their students, and the world in general. I believe it is essential to help teacher
candidates recognize the importance of this through guiding their reflective
process. I also believe that this
reflection must follow new experiences and new opportunities that challenge
preconceived notions and ideas. I
believe strongly that critical incidents in ones life provide the impetus for
rethinking existing beliefs. I do not
believe that I can teach dispositions, but rather, I believe that dispositions
can change through ongoing new experiences, guided reflection, and critical
dialogue.
We Believe... (Beliefs of the Otterbein Education Department program.)
Therefore…I
ensure that all teacher candidates understand the practice of teacher
research. Teacher candidates engage in
action research projects, posing personally authentic questions and learning
how to gather, analyze, and interpret data for future decision making. As a teacher and a learner, I believe that
what happens in classrooms should be based upon data driven assessment. This term is used often in teacher education
as jargon but I believe strongly in the use of student evaluations, student
assessment scores, and student product results as indication of where I need to
change my teaching and learning. It is
essential that I do this so as to provide the model of this practice for my
teacher candidates.
·
The Interdependency of Pedagogy and Content
Knowledge is not a series of discrete bits of information. Effective teachers
help their teacher candidates see relationships among different areas of study
and their application to the real world. In our curriculum, liberal arts and
professional courses are intentionally connected. In the same manner, pedagogy
and content often are addressed together.
Therefore…I
ensure that in every class I teach, the content of the lesson is provided
through instructional methods and strategies that are considered best practice
in teaching and learning. In teacher
education, every course taught is not only important for the content given but
for the pedagogical content knowledge provided through the models provided by
the professor. Therefore, when I am
teaching an instructional technology course, it is not only the Smartboard
technical skills that are being addressed but how I engage teacher candidates
in using the Smartboard throughout the class.
It is also important to note that in the class that I teach most often, Middle Childhood Methods, we have decided
to ensure that teacher candidates understand the methods of teaching all
subjects (math, science, language arts, and social studies) both as having common elements and unique
elements. Therefore, the class is
structure to meet on individual days to ensure that teacher candidates
understand subject specific methods but then meets as an integrated class one
day to ensure that teacher candidates can see the overarching connection of
those methods. As a middle-childhood-educator,
this interdependency of pedagogy and content is essential as a model of best
practice in middle childhood classrooms.
·
The Potential of All Children
Every child deserves to be taught by quality teachers who believe that each
child is capable of learning. The Otterbein teacher education program provides
its candidates with the knowledge, skills and dispositions for creating
learning environments that are developmentally responsive for each of the
teacher candidates they teach.
Therefore…I
work to ensure that my teaching and learning meets state and national standards
and college goals but I also belief strongly in my responsibility to meet each
individual student where they are and help them find their path to
success. I believe strongly that my
success is completely tied to my teacher candidates’ success and it is my
responsibility to modify my teaching and learning so as to reach each student’s
needs. I work to be available to my
teacher candidates as often as possible when they need. I provide my teacher candidates chances to
redo work so that mastery is met and I provide extra time when possible. In clearly stating my support for teacher
candidates, I need to clearly state my strong sense of commitment to my field
and to the excellence that the college works to provide. I know that I am ultimately responsible to
the students my teacher candidates will come into contact with and so with a
strong belief in the process of becoming a teacher, I am committed to stating
clearly when teachers have not finished their journey.
·
The Richness of Diversity
Our program prepares teachers to accept, honor and enhance the diversity within
the school environment. Diversity includes but is not limited to ethnicity,
gender, social class, sexual orientation, and special needs.
Therefore…I
have spent my life as a teacher looking for ways to celebrate diversity and
trying to be aware of the social and political barriers to this
celebration. I believe that I am called
to live a life of global consciousness and cultural awareness as a model for my
students and as a participant with my students.
As a teacher of young adolescents, I worked to bridge tolerance though a
handicap awareness unit and a Best
Buddies program. In the small rural community where I worked, there were
close ties to
Therefore…I
believe strongly in the use of all tools that will assist with teaching and
learning. I feel responsible to embed
technology in all of my classes. I keep
a professional website updated, use Blackboard for all course development, have
been trained to use the new Smartboard technology in teaching and learning and
strive to constantly look for new ways and new tools to help students make
teaching and learning more engaging.
Only by taking risks myself with this ever-changing paradigm, can I
encourage future teachers to take those risks to see the potential of
technology to improve teaching and learning for their students.
Therefore…I
believe that educators are in a constant struggle to keep a balance between
theory and practice. My goal is to provide methods and strategies for teacher
candidates to be able to take into the class and yet to help them to build
philosophical tenets on which they make decisions about these methods. In my
classroom, teacher candidates learn to be researchers in their own classrooms
with the use of reflective practice and action research. Teacher candidates
keep a reflective journal throughout their field experiences and must not only
describe their experiences in the field but also must analyze the meaning that
these experiences have to their growth as a professional in the field. What does one need to know and how does one
come to know that? What role does a teacher play in that individual struggle
for personal achievement? What experiences with teaching and learning will lead
to the ultimate realization of these goals? These questions are guiding my
practice and persuade me to encourage my own middle childhood teacher
candidates and in-service teachers to lead a life of inquiry into these same
questions
·
The Merit of Experiential Learning
Otterbein is committed to continuous and progressive field experiences. The
program exposes teacher education candidates to a variety of educational
settings.
Therefore...I
believe that each student comes to the classroom with very different
expectations and prior experiences. My goal is to help them take prior
knowledge and find how new knowledge will fit into their schema most
effectively. I strongly believe that students need authentic experiences in a
variety of field settings to assure that they have new critical incidents that
allow them to reconsider and reflect on their previous preconceived notions
about teaching and learning. I believe
that teaching and learning must occur out of the college classroom as well as
within it. The education department has
a strong field component in all of their programs, and I believe that I must
continue to find ways to embellish on this already strong component of their
program. I have consistently taken
students to state and national conferences both as participants and as
presenters. I have taken students to
school resource centers, museums, homeless shelters, ethnic restaurants and
markets, neighborhood centers, community educational stores, and to visit
exemplary middle childhood educational programs. Dewey’s beliefs are the foundation for my
practice. Carefully planned experiences aligned with the curriculum goals
followed by reflection leads to essential learning. Taking this one step further, I believe that
service learning used in my classroom takes Dewey’s philosophy one step further
adding a component of social justice, equity, and peace to the experiences that
most impact teacher candidates.
Therefore…I
believe that assessment should be used to enhance understanding. It should enhance my understanding of my own
teaching and learning, my understanding of my students and their needs, my
students’ understanding of their own work and how they are responsible to show
how they have met standards through performance, and finally how they must hold
themselves accountable to ensuring that teaching and learning happens with
their students in the field. I use
summative and formative assessment techniques to help guide my practice. These include the use of common rubrics,
portfolios, teacher work samples, and criteria based self-assessment. In my methods class, teacher candidates are
responsible to produce a modified Teacher
Work Sample. This work sample asks
for students to pretest their students before they implement their lesson
plans. They then post-test their
students on the same knowledge, skills, and dispositions after they have taught
their lessons. It is only through this value-based assessment model that
students can legitimately assess impact on their students. I attempt to follow this same model in my
classroom by beginning each class with a pretest of my students’ knowledge on
the standards of teacher preparation, I then gather evidence of their
performance at the end of the class through their portfolio artifacts. This evidence can then be used to assess my
impact on their teaching and learning.
Showing a clear alignment of standards, goals, and performance
assessment not only of our teacher candidates but also the middle school
students that they teach, is one way that we can begin to compete with the
ongoing challenges that have been lobbied against teacher education programs in
our nation.
Conclusion
For me, the
path to becoming a successful professor of middle childhood education includes
a growth in my own reflective practice, the ongoing transformation of
curriculum and pedagogy based upon best practice, the ongoing challenge of
embedding technology to improve teaching and learning, and continued striving
for a more democratic classroom through encouragement of student voice. All of this is situated around an internal
core of wanting to see social justice, equity, and peace achieved with the
support of educators. George Counts
(1942) posed the essential question that leads my professional life: Dare
the School Change the Social Order.
.