My name is Kelsey Marlow. I am a 23 year old Early Childhood Education Major at Illinois State University. I've lived in the same small town in central Illinois my whole life. I have known that I want to be a teacher since the young age of 5 years old. I made this discovery when I was ahead of the game in reading. My kindergarten teacher let me sit in front of the class and read to them. At this moment my mom, my teachers, and I knew that I would become a teacher in the future. I am just 11 short months away from my graduation date. I'm starting this blog for my third clinical block of classes. During my clinical experience I will be placed in a Kindergarten class. I can't wait to start my journey in the education world.
Throughout my time in this clinical experience I have four main goals I would like to achieve. My first goal is to better my planning and differentiation skills. This would include making appropriate and effective modifications for my students. In my past clinical experiences I have not been in a situation where students needed any modifications or extreme differentiation. I'm hoping to be in a classroom setting where I can work on this skill. My second goal is to be able to effectively and professionally work with my colleagues This would include my peers in my college classes along with my cooperating teacher and other faculty at my clinical placement. In my last clinical placement I witnessed teachers working very well together and relying on each other for support. I want to learn how to build a relationship with my peers that will be beneficial to all of us. It will be important for us to know how to work well with others and to effectively communicate with other teachers when we get out in the teaching profession. My third goal is to broaden my horizons when it comes to content areas. In the past I have only had experience in math or literacy lessons and lesson planning. I am looking forward to trying new subjects. When I was in clinical placements before I never got the chance to even observe a social studies or science class. I am excited to be able to add these subjects to the list of topics I have covered and taught. As I am implementing my lessons I hope to find topics that my students are interested in and can connect with. My fourth goal is to be able to better interpret formal and informal assessment data. Last semester we had some practice with this process, but I think this is a task that you get better at with time and practice. Throughout the semester I hope to take into consideration the students assessment results when I am implementing and planning my lessons.
One final goal I have for myself is to become a compassionate teacher. Before I started my journey at Illinois State University I went to my community college to get my general education classes taken care of. During this time my cousin, Lisa Schmidgall, who was a 6th grade teacher got diagnosed with stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer (not caused from smoking). I was the family member with the most flexible schedule so I took care of her during her 10 month battle before she passed away. Lisa was a teacher with more compassion and love for than job than anyone I had ever met. She took me under her wings at a young age and let me help make bulletin boards or staple papers for her during the summer. She has had a huge impact on the type of teacher I want to be. If you follow the link below you will understand the type of person Lisa was and I want to be.
Pekin Teacher Leaves Lifetime of Memories for Local School - CIProud
Kelsey, I loved reading about why you want to become a teacher. Your cousin seems like she was a very talented teacher. I'm sure the experiences you took from her during this time will allow you to become just like her. I also have set some of the same goals for myself. I would love to know more about differentiation. I feel as if that is something I'm lacking in my education. I hope to meet the needs of all my students, and I realize that is not by doing the same thing for every student. For example, I loved learning from a textbook and by reading, however, I know not all my students will be just like me, especially since that is pretty rare. I cannot wait to share this last semester of school with you and all our peers as we begin to start our journey's to be real teachers!
ReplyDeleteKelsey,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed learning more about your background and goals, Kelsey. I appreciated your goal of learning more about working professionally with colleagues, and I'm glad to read that you got to see good examples of this last semester. I will be interested to hear how you plan to contribute to this professional setting this semester. I also appreciated you providing info about your teaching inspiration and a link to the news video about your aunt's passing. This really helps us understand what motivates and drives you. Thanks!
:)Kira
Kelsey,
ReplyDeleteI loved learning that your cousin Lisa inspired you to become a teacher. When you said, “Lisa was a teacher with more compassion and love for than job than anyone I had ever met” I couldn’t help but smile. I knew right away why you have such a big heart. You are the one person in the class who is always a helping hand and they’re to make sure we are all okay emotionally and mentally. The characteristics you posses will truly make you an incredible teacher. Most importantly, little kids can sense when someone who has a good heart and is non-threatening. They will truly love you.
I enjoyed reading about your goals for this semester. I also am excited to learn how to differentiate lessons better. It is often difficult to understand this concept because we don’t have much experience. However, I hope that your CT will be a good role model for you who can help you to differentiate students. Do you think that after a couple years of experience in the classroom, differentiation will be easier because you will be able to assess where children are faster? I ask this because I feel if I can mentally tell at the beginning of the year where students are at and where they should be I will feel more confident in differentiating children. Furthermore, the quicker you differentiate the correct group of children at the same level the more benefit they will get from your lessons and the more they will excel. I know that with anything even experienced teachers assess children wrong. However, I think overall it will be a benefit not only to the students but your quality of teaching.
In your blog you say you hope to find topics that your students are interested in. Do you think that teaching topics children like will make them more excited to learn? In addition, do you think that choosing books that children are interested in will make them more avid readers in the future?
I really enjoyed reading your first blog. I am confident that you will be a great teacher. I expect to see your name in lights one day.
Good luck,
Becky