May 7-Reflection of Unit

As I reflect back on my unit, I really think that I gained a lot from this experience. First, I think that this teaching experience has taught me to be more self-aware of the goals and expectations I set for myself. That is, throughout the unit I felt that at times I was going with a lot of goals that I personally wanted to accomplish and at times some of these personal goals of mine were not met because I did not want them to interfere with the goals of the unit. Nevertheless I do believe that I did accomplish a lot of my personal goals and I can see that I have grown as a teacher. For example, in this classroom it was my first time that I learned to leave the "nice" teacher image behind and for the first time I needed to implement a teacher with authority. I feel that last semester I was really nice with the students and when they did something wrong I didn't let them know that their behavior was wrong. This semester my teacher Mrs.M recommended that I teach with more authority especially when these students acted up. So I listened to her and I found that I was more effective in letting them when their behavior was out of line. In terms of their behavior alone, I also feel that I have learned new strategies for classroom management. One of the strategies I learned is to implement classroom rules from the very beginning of the school year. As I reflect on other teaching field experiences I can recall a strategy that was used in my Language block field placement last semester. In this pre-k classroom, when the teacher would read a story before she read she talked to the students the five finger rule. She established the rules of the classroom, reviewed these rules with the students to make them aware their importance in class instructure. I think that I will definetely adopt this strategy next year in my teaching experience. Overall, I feel that I have gained a lot from this field placement and I was very pleased with the results it brought.