Showcase Self-Assessment: Being an Inspired Educator
When teachers get to know their students outside of a teacher-student interaction, they learn more about each other. In doing so, they develop a stronger bond which makes students more likely to engage with lesson plans and feel comfortable coming to the teacher to ask questions. I am inspired to continuously reflect on my teaching practices in order to maximize my teaching skills and maximize my learners’ engagement. Through discussions in this program and my observations of various teaching practices, I believe I will be able to inspire my learners both in terms of science learning and socio-emotional learning as I believe teaching content and teaching students to be kind humans do not need to be separate endeavors.
In order to view myself as an inspired teacher and also inspire my middle school students, I need to be comfortable asking for criticism regarding my teaching practices, reflecting on that criticism, and then applying that criticism to further grow as an inspired educator. I will use the four stages of teaching (planning, teaching, analyzing/ reflecting, and applying) in all my lesson planning moving forward because I appreciate its emphasis of teachers needing to be in a constant state of reflection and learning which I believe to be the best way to achieve success as an inspired educator.
As a teacher, I commit to the pursuit of additional professional development opportunities to further grow in my Inspire perspectives. Potential professional development includes conferences on helping learners develop a growth mindset, learning better ways to engage middle school learners with more meaningful literacy and dialog, and learning about organizational strategies that will help me be more efficient and effective with my instruction. I will also seek out advice and assistance from my principle and Lead Teacher at my site to see if they will be willing to observe and offer insight on my teaching strategies. As long as I continue to reflect on my teaching, I believe I can be an inspired and inspiring middle school science teacher, and I look forward to discovering where this takes me as an educator.