Successes

Being a teacher has been one of the biggest achievements in my life. I went from a career in finance and not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, to finding something that I truly enjoy. When I go into school, I look forward to seeing my students and how they are doing. Every day that I get to go to work, I feel that that is a success.

I feel successful daily walking into my classroom. Every morning, I have the same students that come in to see me first thing, before heading to their 1^st period. I feel that that is a success in itself because not many teachers have that. I feel the best when I see that my students are going out of their way to say hi or even make small talk. That verifies that I am creating positive relationships and imprinting on these students in a good way. When I am teaching a lesson, feel the best when my students have that “ah ha” moment. Since a lot of my students are missing some of the crucial processes by the time they get into my classroom, I find that that moment is so rewarding for both the student and myself. I cannot think of a time that I do not feel my best when I am with my students in the classroom. It is just something that I look forward to every day and can a career I have been able to excel at.

In having success in my classroom, I recall a few students who entered my classroom in the beginning of the year with no motivation to learn or pass math. I remember talking with these students daily one on one, trying to help them with processes and scaffolding lessons more so to help them understand better. When I was not working with the students one on one, they would just stop working and it was like there was nothing I could do to encourage them. By talking more on a personal level with these students and understanding what their interests are and getting to know them did I find out that they liked things like videogames, basketball, football, and anime. With this information, I altered some of the upcoming lessons to incorporate their interests, current events, and real-world applications that related to them more. These students have graduated, but from time to time, they email me and come into my classroom to visit. They are in community college understanding more of what they do in their math course because of some of the things they learned while in my class.

Though I have had many success stories and experiences in my classroom, prior to joining an MAT program there were not as many. My MAT program has altered my way of thinking to having a more Growth Mindset and creating a more culturally relevant classroom. Relating to students, engaging them in more hands-on STEM type activities, and focusing on teaching to the individual and not the universal students has really made a difference in student performance and environment of my classroom. I can feel the difference in the classroom vibes when I walk in in the morning. I can see better student teacher relationships developing and my students really come in wanting to work for me. They come in ready to learn and I think that has been the biggest success of all.

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Culturally relevant pedagogy “means recognizing and celebrating those students who show up to our classrooms daily, welcoming their voices, demanding their reflection, and encouraging them toward self-discovery” (Fink, 2016). This helps to encourage those who may have been done wrong by our system to no give up and the we care about their success. In a culturally relevant classroom, the academic expectations are held high, there is an understanding based on differences in student teacher backgrounds culturally, and the inequality is acknowledged and addressed.

I teach at a predominantly black high school, where a lot of my students come in from the city. I did not grow up in the city and have not experienced life as many of them have. From coming from homes with a single parent to foster care to homeless home situations, it is sometimes hard to understand where my students are coming from. By creating a culturally relevant classroom, I can better relate to my students in understanding what they like and how they think, what they may have been through and what they can relate to.

In creating a culturally relevant classroom, there many things that I already do to incorporate this idea. In AP Statistics, my students read a lot of articles and analyze many different types of data sets. To make this culturally relevant, I try to use a lot of sport references and show a movie or video, here and there, that show these concepts. I work to make my materials relate to student interest and current events to gain student interests and engagement. I can use articles of different events that can relate to minority rights and civil disputes that have taken place in society that has made it what it is today.

Creating a more culturally relevant classroom, there are some things that I can do to improve my classroom environment. Instead of having students learn about what is, I can teach them to about what can be. In one of the articles I read this week, Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade stated, “Schooling is the process by which you institutionalize people to accept their place in a society… Education is the process through which you teach them to transform it” (Escudero, 2019). To do this, I need to focus the purpose of my lessons more in the academic and personal success of the individual student more than I already do. I do give students more culturally relevant texts, but I need to also give them more on the inequality side of the house. I need to be sure that I am addressing cultural competence, sociopolitical consciousness, and academic achievement equally and not one more heavily than the others.

References

Fink, L. (2016, February 21). Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. Retrieved from https://ncte.org/blog/2016/02/culturally-relevant-pedagogy/

Escudero, B. (2019, January 6). How to Practice Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. Retrieved from https://www.teachforamerica.org/stories/how-to-engage-culturally-relevant-pedagogy

Growth Mindset and Affective Assessment

When I first heard about Growth Mindset, I did not exactly know how deep of a concept it truly was. I thought that a growth mindset was simplistic, like having the want to learn. Through my MAT courses and other educational professional development course I have taken this year, I have come to realize it has a much larger meaning. A growth mindset means wanting to learn, never stop wanting to learn, facing each challenge head on. I feel that to teach with that mindset can be challenging, but as I develop innovative activities and give my students more opportunities to self-discover, I am helping them to develop that type of mindset.

To support my students in developing a Growth Mindset, I do a number of things in my lessons. If a student is feeling defeated or I can see that they are giving up, I help them to realize that they can figure it out and I push them to do so. I give them some guidance when needed and give them an opportunity to get there themselves. I allow my students ample opportunities to practice materials, giving immediate feedback along the way to ensure mastery of as many skills as possible. My students have developed, over the years, a more fixed mindset, meaning they do not want to push themselves and if they keep getting something wrong, they shut down. I try to promote students to instead of look at a critique as a negative, use that to fuel the fire and to try again to get it right by scaffolding things even a little more to break it down for them. Having more collaborative activities, also is a way I push students to perform at the level of the highest of students and the best way to push that mentality is to use positive reinforcement and a competitive reward system.

In supporting student growth, I use different types of affective assessment to improve my student’s learning. An affective assessment helps me to gauge the comfortability of level of my students with concepts and by having them also demonstrate their cognitive understanding, I can see where that comfortability may be developing in the process. I tend to give more reflective exit tickets at the end of a lesson and sometimes a reflective recall type of drill. This allows me to see what most students may be getting incorrect, so I can make sure I address it the following class or even later in the lesson. I can be sure to squash any misconceptions and help my students adjust instead of getting stuck in a habit.

Having a more positive mindset and allowing students to not only learn from me, but me learn from them has helped me to foster a more Growth Mindset oriented classroom. When I push my students, they see it more as a caring approach rather than a this is the work complete it. If I show that I am willing to help them get it, they are more willing to push themselves to learn. This mindset has helped me gain a lot od trust from my students and have more students come to me for advice and help with their other courses. They see me more as an equal than a superior and feel that we are all in this together.

Cultural, Socio-economic, and Linguistic Diversity

At the current high school that teach, there are a lot of challenging in the population that effect my approach to teaching. The majority population of my school is minority, mainly consisting of Black, Latino, and Middle Eastern students. More than half of the school population is on Free and Reduced Meals. A lot of the Latino population that come into my classroom are Level 1 and 2 English learners, so there are some challenges when it comes to communication at times. A lot of my students also come from a variety of home situations, such as a one parent household, foster care, or homeless. With these challenges, it is important that I take these things into account when creating lessons and activities for students.

In adapting to theses variables, I do a number of things to ensure I am allowing every student a fair opportunity in being successful. When assisting my English Learners, I try to scaffold my lessons more. I write out step by step on mathematical processes, create diagrams and color-coded visuals, and have some Spanish worksheets that coincide with the English version. I also will teach to the class and work one-on-one with my ELL students to break down what was previous done.

In combating some of the gaps that there may be in my classroom due to home situations or prior loss of teachings in earlier grades, I use similar techniques as those for the ELL students. I create scaffolded lessons, multi-tier activities, and I work to use student interest in the problems and activities I create. A lot of my students enjoy basketball and football, so I use a lot of those types of references in my problem creations. I have students working in groups based on their comfortability with a topic and those that struggle the most, I try to give more one-on-one time for during the class period. I do what I can to spike student interest also through music, by using a reward system that allows students to pick their favorite songs to listen to while they do work. As long as students are working hard, I play the music they like to listen to most.

In working with a low of lower income and minority students, I have to be sure that I am addressing their needs. I have to create more lessons that are scaffolded and that lay out each step in a process. I have to be more thorough and allow them the opportunity to ask for help during class. I give students the opportunity for self-discovery and collaborative work during class time. Though my student may need a little more assistance at times because of their backgrounds, they still are willing and able to learn at the highest level.