It’s the end of day 2 of module and I feel the pressure and the stress, especially after the discussion we had in class about what’s to come and 405 expectation regarding work and assignment that needs to be done.

 

            We started the day of with reflecting back on our credo which to be honest I was not too excited about because I am one of those individuals who struggle with getting my point across through writing.  In addition, I feel that my main points and big ideas are still values that is most important to me as a teacher.  However, I am finding it difficult to thoroughly explain why I feel this way.  I hope that after this editing assignment it will all turn out okay.  Secondly, we talked and learned about Bloom’s Taxonomy and how it can be a tool to help teachers lead students to conceptual understanding.  We then had a pair share on how we as teachers can use Bloom’s Taxonomy in our own subject areas, and I thought that this was a great strategy to teach students scientific processes that may be difficult to understand.  Where we start out by learning the terminology and definitions.  Followed by explaining what each component is responsible for and what they do.  An inquiry can even be formed as a form of analysis or synthesis of Bloom’s Taxonomy.  One of the suggestions brought by a colleague that I thought was brilliant was use is as a checklist for the teacher to make sure that we are evaluating students in all areas and that are evaluation aligns with the section of which we are emphasizing.  Lastly, we talked about 405 expectation and what’s to come.  After receiving our official shape of the term via calendar I initially panicked.  Visually seeing how close we are to practicum increased my concern on not having my placement yet, and not being able to unit and lesson plan what I was expected to teach.  Especially knowing that we must fulfill 7 weeks of being in full emersion, I want to be able to be fully immersed as early as possible so that if there are any incidents where I would have to miss days, which I really hope I don’t, will provide me with a larger margin to make up for the missed days. 

 

            I really hope that I get my placement soon because I want to be able to start planning, and I don’t want to be able to plan one lesson at a time.  I want to be able to plan with the end in mind so that I can have a good flow and transition from each lesson and each day.  I really want to be able to be successful, especially that now I have come so far.  I feel that the circumstances I am in now is setting me up to fail.  I can’t help but question the percentage of students in schools who feel the same way.  For example, the education system still relies heavily on written exams as a form of formative assessment.  If I were a student who was just not good at anything written, I wonder what kind and the magnitude of anxiety, stress, and frustration they experience knowing that they can’t express their knowledge in the best way they can.  Maybe this is one of the reasons why students are unmotivated, due to the feeling of defeat and failure even before taking that exam.