The Beliefs of an Aspiring Teacher 1

The Beliefs of an Aspiring Teacher

Graeme Garland

EDUC-4202/4280-YA - C&I English (I/S) Pt 1

Alex Kraft-Wilson

Sunday, January 13, 2019

The Beliefs of an Aspiring Teacher 2

The Beliefs of an Aspiring Teacher

Looking back at my first experience as a teacher, it taught me many things. It

showed me that although I can teach, I still must improve my abilities not just for me but
for those I will inevitably teach. Before going into my first placement I did not have very
many strong opinions on my teaching practice, but now after my placement I have
developed five essential beliefs. Those five being teachers must build and maintain a
positive relationship their students, students need routines built into their daily schedules,
students need to be assessed or checked on daily, students must be accountable for their
own learning, and for students to be motivated to learn they must have their interests
peaked.

The first of my beliefs is one that I had before going into placement, and that is
that teachers must build and maintain a positive relationship with their students. The
experience that solidified this belief to me was one student in my classroom was mostly a
C student, ended up getting one of the best marks on the assignment I gave to the class. I
firmly believed this happened because I built a great relationship with her, which gave
her the confidence and motivation to produce her best work my AT has ever seen from
her. The high-level practices(HLP) that were used to get there was building respectful
relationship. Specifying and reinforcing productive behavior, was done by every time she
was being productive I would tell her she was doing a great job and at the end of class
that I liked how productive she was. Another one that I found helps build positive
relationship was learning about students cultural, religious, family, intellectual, and
personal experiences and resources for use in instruction, getting to know what interests
students helps build a relationship with them and it shows that you care and that improves
a student’s moral.

My next belief is a new one for me, students need routines built into their
schedule. An experience that helped me realize that was my AT has it drilled into the
students that the first ten to fifteen minutes of class was for instruction on what was going
on in the classroom that day, whether it was a work period or an instructional period the
students new to come into class remove headphones, take their sketchbooks out and be
prepared for the class. Students also got in the habit of trying to leave extra early because
of the construction in the school and it was instructed by the principal that students could
leave two minutes before the bell, but this started to turn into five minutes and packing up
ten to fifteen minutes before the bell. So, I had to set the norm of saying if anyone packed
up before seven minutes before the bell then no one got to leave early. By the end of my
placement students were self-policing themselves. The HLP’s that coincide with this
belief are implementing norm and routines for classroom discourse and work, as well as
implementing organizational routines. Implementing organizational routines for
transitions is a good practice so that a class waste little time when transitioning from
activity to activity.

My Third belief is something I thought to be impossible and that is to assess

children daily. I know that this sounds impossible but when I sat down to think about it,
things didn’t seem that way. As a teacher this means just simply making sure that
The Beliefs of an Aspiring Teacher 3

students understood the lesson, so whether this is a on the spot formative assessment or a
checklist type of assessment or a final summative form of assessment these things can be
done daily in the class room, and I experienced this in my placement. My AT showed me
this, in her art class every class she talks to students to make sure they understand the
instructions given out at the beginning of class. This is how simple it is, not a big blown
up assessment but just vocally communicating with students is a way to assess students.
The HLP’s this belief has within it is providing oral and written feedback to students.
Oral feedback is one of the easiest ways to give feedback as it is immediate and personal,
it also is not as time consuming as some of the other methods. Interpreting the results of
student work, including routine assignment, quizzes, tests, projects and standardized
assessments. It is not enough just to assess students we also need to learn from students
successes and failures so that we can help them learn more efficiently. Lastly checking
students understanding during and at the conclusion of lessons. This can be as simple as
thumbs up thumbs down which I try to get the kids to do with their eyes closed so it is
truthful and judgment free from their peers.

Another belief is that students must be accountable for their own learning. An
experience that showed me this was the lack of attendance at Westgate during my whole
placement I only had a full class once. This made it so that a lot of the students needed to
learn on their own time in order to keep up. A lot of the students ended up asking for
material days in advance because they knew they would not be coming the next day,
which was good to see them take responsibility for their missed time. Another way I
found myself doing this is letting them choose the due dates for assignments which I felt
worked really well, as almost all of them handed their assignments in on time because
there was a level of accountability. Some of the HLP’s that work within this belief are
setting long and short-term goals so that students can see a goal and work towards that
goal especially if it is a co-constructed goal as they feel as though the made a promise to
complete the goal. Another HLP is leading a group discussion, but in order for this to
work best the teacher must give some control over to the students. Whether this means
giving the topic and seeing if the students can teach each other or if the teacher guides
them through it. Either way the students should be doing the majority of the discussion.

My final belief is that in order for students to be motivated to learn students must
have their interests peaked. Which was learned through giving students multiple options
on how they wanted to do an assignment during placement. The assignment had its
guidelines of aspects that had to be included but the topic was up to the student to do, so
students didn’t say I don’t like this topic because it was one that they were passionate
about and cared about which helped get them interested and engaged in the project. The
HLP’s that are used to get the knowledge to be able to incorporate this into the classroom
are building respectful relationships as this will motivate students to do their work if they
respect their teacher students will be motivated to gain the approval of their work. Also
learning about students cultural, religious, family, intellectual, and personal experiences
and resources for use in instruction because when you learn about individual students you
can tailor lessons to peak those interest thus motivating students to learn when they can
relate the subject matter they are learning to interests of their own.
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Finding out these beliefs are just the start of my teaching career as I learn and
grow as an educator so will my beliefs. Reflecting on how far my abilities and execution
of being a teacher has come in the past three months is huge. Through these five beliefs
teachers must build and maintain a positive relationship their students, students need
routines built into their daily schedules, students need to be assessed or checked on daily,
students must be accountable for their own learning, and for students to be motivated to
learn they must have their interests peaked. I believe those beliefs have put me on the
right track to becoming a successful teacher.