Sierra Martin

PDP 450 Essay

11/4/16
Personalized Educational Program
After my seventh grade Language Arts teaching sparked my love for reading, I
knew that I wanted to pursue a career in teaching. I was determined to take advantage
of any and all opportunities I could in order to gain experience teaching others. In high
school I was elected Clarinet/Woodwind Section Leader for my high school marching
and concert bands and took the Teachers for Tomorrow course in order to further my
knowledge of skills and strategies to teach others. Once I began applying for colleges
and universities, it was obvious that I wanted to research their Education Programs and
acquire a major in the educational field. I knew before the end of my senior year that
Bridgewater College was just the place to let my inner educator grow and thrive.
Over the past four years at Bridgewater College, I have acquired over two
hundred hours of filed experience hours in the classroom. Within these four years, I
have observed, assisted in, and taught lessons to students ranging from first to fifth
grade. I have taken various courses in relation to my degree of study that have also
furthered my knowledge and skills and accompanied the many field experiences. A few
courses that have made a lasting impression on my skill set are Diversity in the
Classroom, Classroom Management, Early Literacy, and Curriculum in the Classroom.
These courses have helped to prepare me for my last Interterm course and Student
Teaching experiences.

The Diversity in the Classroom course informed and taught me more about
diversity and its growing role in the overall change in schools and their demographics.
During this course and its corresponding field experience (the first of my college career)
I learned that it is always important to put ones personal biases aside. If one was to do
that it becomes second nature to fully consider the background and possible hardships
that many students in schools face today. During the Classroom Management course I
learned that it is vital to establish and maintain a safe environment in the classroom.
This course was one that helped me grow in my reflection and application of learning
from both my course and practicum experience. The first artifact included in my portfolio
is a Reflection Report on the environment of the classroom I visited for the duration of
the semester. This Reflection Report is important to include because it was an
opportunity to observe and analyze the environment of ab existing classroom, and
brainstorm ways for me to improve upon the strategies I observed and learned about in
class.
Educators gain the most attention and respect from their students when they
implement classroom management strategies that ensure firm, yet nurturing
relationships between teachers and their students in regards to their behavior. The Early
Literacy course taught me various strategies and resources to use when teaching and
remediating students when reading, and working on word study skills. The two sections
of this course prepared me to adequately remediate students in regards to phonemic
awareness and manipulation, fluency and comprehension, and vocabulary building
when reading various fiction and nonfiction texts. Once in my Curriculum in the
Classroom course I quickly noticed that many of the skills and strategies I had learned

about in previous courses would become important to revisit and implement in my

coursework and field experience. After creating an entire Unit, practicing teaching a
lesson from my Unit, and then transferring activities and ideas into my field experience
that accompanied this course, I learned that an educators professional development
continues to blossom even after graduating from higher education programs. This Unit,
the second artifact of my portfolio, is one that took me an entire semester to create and
develop, and also prepared me to combine all the skills and strategies I had learned up
to that point. The Unit also helped me to consider various ways to plan cross curricular
activities and concepts into my every day instruction, and further prepared me for my
Student Teaching and SAPA development in my last semester at Bridgewater College.
The last course to greatly inform my knowledge of the educational profession
was Student Teaching and its accompanying field experience. During this exposure to
full planning and teaching in the classroom I learned that the professional development
and learning of educators does not end at the college level, but continues every day
whether through faculty meetings, assigned readings from administration, or even the
students themselves. Through this experience I was able to research and implement
various instructional strategies and learn alongside my Cooperating Teacher. I began
my Student Teaching by learning about, planning, and carrying out lessons that were a
part of my SAPA (Student Academic Progress Assignment). With this assignment I was
able to dig deeper into learning about the behaviors and learning styles of the students
in the class through pre-assessing the knowledge of the students, giving explicit
instructional strategies and activities, administering a post assessment, and then
remediating students who were struggling. I felt this was the most important assignment

to include as my third artifact because of its relation to my personalized educational

program. The SAPA assignment was an assignment that incorporated all aspects of the
Teacher Education Program at Bridgewater College. It was also the most realistic and
relevant to my future duties as an educator in our public school systems. The SAPA
assignment is a tool that I will continue to develop and complete every year as it
includes necessary data and strategies that apply to every school year and every
student; knowledge, progress, planning, analysis, reflection, and evaluation.
Engaging Diverse Perspectives
Once I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in the education field, I also knew
that I needed to address any previous biases and learn anything I could about the
backgrounds and traditions of the children that will be in my future classrooms. When I
first arrived at Bridgewater College, I quickly saw that the cultural atmosphere was
something very different than the atmosphere of the school system I grew up in at
home. I could see and hear that individuals came from very different backgrounds and I
was always intrigued by the stories when meeting new people. This carried over when I
would go into various schools for my field experience placements. I always made sure
to infer about certain cultural differences to keep in mind in order to build some
background knowledge on the students so I could be as resourceful and accurate in the
short time I spent with them during the semester.
One course that was greatly beneficial and insightful was the Diversity in the
Classroom course provided and required by the Teacher Education Program. This
course delved into all the cultures, traditions, ethnicities, races, and background
experiences that so many of the students in the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County

area. This aspect of the course made it even more relevant to the practicum hours that
accompanied the Education Course. Over the duration of the Diversity in the Classroom
course, I learned how to address existing biases, how to deal with them, how to deal
with others biases, the effects of cultural differences in the classroom, and how to
integrate the students home lives and backgrounds into the classroom in an appropriate
way. The activities I participated in definitely prepared me for my placement in a local
elementary school as Harrisonburg City and Rockingham County had over forty-two
languages spoken and over fifteen ethnicities or races identified within the population.
I found it important to include my School and Community essay as my fourth
artifact because it was the most relevant to my experiences, and helped me grow as a
Teacher Education Candidate in my second year at Bridgewater College. This
assignment was one that required me to maintain purposeful observations while in the
classroom and connect that back to content I was learning during instruction. After each
experience I would keep track of my observations and interactions in a journal that I
wrote in for the duration of my field experience. I was able to use these journal entries
when it came time to develop my essay. The assignment required me to not only
maintain and integrate observations from my school experience but to also research the
data collected from the local areas. With this assignment, I was able to continue to
refine my research and integration skills in regards to writing, but to also become more
aware of diversity in schools, and make it more relevant to my future experiences as an
educator.

Citizenship/Ethics & Community Responsibility

As I moved through my courses and years at Bridgewater College, I continued to

build my knowledge of strategies to use in the classroom and ways I can become aware
of the personal backgrounds of the students. One course that really challenged me and
required me to think outside the box was the Christian Perspectives on Violence and
Peace course I took during the Interterm of my Junior year. This course required me to
read over fifty pages every two days and to be the leader of class discussions one two
occasions throughout the three-week course. I was able to use educational strategies in
a modified form when in charge of mediating discussion, and this was something that
was interesting, but I enjoyed very much. Another aspect of the course that was
challenging was the overall content of the readings and discussions. With the course
being a religion and philosophy course, we had many discussions on religion and its
effects on society over many years, and it was a great opportunity to participate and be
the proprietor of class discussions. I chose to include my Leadership Notes for one of
the two opportunities where I was the lead in class discussions because it helped me
see the accountability and responsibility I was tasked with when forming the
conversation topics.
Being the leader of discussion was not only stressful, but also insightful. I was
able to express my thoughts in regards to the readings and hear what other classmates
thought of the content. The Leadership Notes were always seen by the professor and
approved before class meetings, so it was very important for me to read and re-read the
content before developing my Leadership Notes, and to also make modifications after
meeting with my professor and discussing the important talking points. The Leadership
Notes I have used as my fifth artifact are even more important because of their

relevance to behaviors one might observe in the classroom. The notes included were
based off of reading dealing mimicking a desired behavior or action. While this was a
required reading and topic of discussion, in reflection, I can see that this topic is
something I have seen in almost every classroom I have visited during my time at
Bridgewater College. Whether it is to receive praise or a laugh from the class, individual
students are almost always mimicking behaviors modeled by their teachers, along with
outside sources like television shows or even their friends. In analyzing the relevancy of
this assignment, I can see that I have grown as a learner and educator through the
course required of the Teacher Education Program and the courses required of my
degree that deal with ethical, cultural, and societal actions and decisions. As a future
educator, I know that the decisions and actions I make not only reflect me and the
people I know, but they can also sometimes effect the students I teach and the other
educators I work with in the building.
Global Citizenship & Intercultural Competencies
With my last few semesters at Bridgewater College fast approaching, I had one
last General Education course to take. I decided to take the Indochina and Vietnam
course because of my interest level and hearing about stories from my Grandfather
when I was younger. This course was interesting and my second seminar style course
taken at Bridgewater. Like the religion course, this French course was mostly geared
around multiple readings and a discussion leader to provide key ideas to spark
conversation. Within the curriculum, we were required to discuss and consider the
different aspects of life before Vietnam was the center of a war in the twentieth century.
Analyzing the various aspects of life was especially intriguing once I was able to start

developing my final research project. I decided that I wanted to combine multiple

concepts we talked about during the semester and to also relate that to my specific field
of study. For my research project, I chose to research the effects of French civilization
and culture on the lives and education of Vietnamese citizens and their children.
I decided to include my research project paper, French Influences to Vietnamese
Education, as the sixth and final artifact because of its relevance to my major, and my
interest in education around the world. In researching this project, I learned that
education around the world is greatly influenced by the modern, first-world structure.
After the French invaded Vietnam, students began to learn about the modern world and
the many languages that are included in it. Children began to go to school and help less
at home. Many Vietnamese citizens were very angry due to the downplay and lack of
the Confusion background in the educational system. This project helped me to see that
other countries sometimes directly, and indirectly, influence the basic systems of a
country, and this is not always to benefit the country. In comparison to the French
influence on the Vietnamese educational system, the American way of life has also
influenced other countries as well. Individuals have longed to come to the United States
for years and years, and a better education for their children is among the most
pressing of issues they wish to resolve.
This French course guided me to further see differing perspectives on education
that the world may have. The assignments, discussions, and research made me realize
that I will also be a person who influences the students in my classroom who come from
many different backgrounds and cultures. This course, along with many others, helped
to supplement my educational courses by informing me that I need to learn about the

various traditions, cultures, and backgrounds in order to be culturally relevant, and

develop ways to involve all walks of life in the classroom in an appropriate and engaging
way. This is something that will be important as the world is always changing and
students are coming to school with more baggage and concerns than they have ever
before. As in any field of study and professional career, it is essential that one stay
informed with the changing criteria, expectations, software, etc., and it is no different for
the field of educational instruction.

Conclusion
In preparing for this reflection piece on the vast amounts of learning and growing I have
encountered at Bridgewater, I realized that I am not the same person as I was before I
attended college. I am more aware of my surroundings in regards to culture and
traditions, I am more informed on beneficial educational strategies that have worked
and will continue to work even as many childrens lives change, and I know more about
my role in the world as a professional and a citizen of a world that is causing all the
various changes to life. I truly feel that the atmosphere of Bridgewater College, the
experiences of the Teacher Education program, and the many other courses I have
taken have significantly prepared me to be a competent, trustworthy, and culturally
competent educator, and citizen, for the future.