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Teaching Rationale

2/21/2011

Jack Mosel

(EDU-660534-L601-11SP1) Mentored Teaching

Master of Arts in Teaching Portfolio: Hartsdale

M.A.T Graduate Degree Studies Program, SUNY ESC

Dr. Avonne Alzate / Mentor

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An effective management system paves the way for learning to occur with minimal
interference and maximal nourishment.” (Saphier, 2008)

In seeking out an effective management system that was personal to me, I found a
teaching style along with an adoption of best practices management which allowed me to deliver
effective teaching. I’ll reflect on the utilization of some of these teaching styles and personal
beliefs that will best describe my personal adaptation from them.

This effective management system from a teaching rationale/ personal reflection and
point of view has not been formulated from any one single source of reference or publication nor
practice from my experience throughout my Graduate Degree or teacher training period. It is
more so a value-based collection of skill-sets I have become comfortable with that connotes a
practical framework in a best practices milieu in which I implement an effective and ever
changing design for teaching that works best for me, along with a personal commitment for
lifelong learning where professional practices and content enrichment is embraced.

Having had 2 years of practical teaching experience at a local public high school, I reflect
upon my journey with its trial’s and error’s in finding this system that works for me. Best
management practices and a teaching style therefore, is something that I endured to put into
practice from the beginning of my teaching experience. An immediate and humbling experience
was first had as an emerging educator. Describing the first time in the classroom, adjectives that
were befitting the experience were, Immediacy and desperation along with panic and chaos,
defeat and frustration. I knew that I needed to experience all of these emotions as a “rite of
passage” or in “cutting my teeth” for becoming an educator. I was relieved to have identification
and console from colleagues and peers alike that this was normal and “par for the course”. How I
was to overcome this seemingly daunting and “common” condition however is where the “chaff
is separated from the wheat” I’ve also come to find. After realizing how unprepared I was to
effectively and successfully manage and teach in my classroom, I needed to find and implement
ways to meet the needs to address all that was wrong. This is where I believe I “became” a
teacher.

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Best management practice awareness comes in many forms both personally and
pedagogically apropos to any one given situation and as a holistic approach for transitioning into
a professional and effective educator. Given my reflection of best management practices through
my collective experiences both academically and in practice in my classroom, I reference
academic pedagogical practices through which I find professional validation within the text’s:
The Skillful Teacher Building your Teaching Skills, Sixth Edition 2008, American Education
13th Edition, Joel Spring, 2008 and Discipline without Stress Punishments or Rewards Second
Edition, Dr. Marvin Marshall, 2007.

Upon reflection of my applying best practices management and pedagogically


appropriate teaching, I offer the following as being personally substantive information which has
suggested meaningful practice in origins personal to me in building a foundation from which will
guide and frame my professional practice. My rationale therefore will be what I believe is
insightful reflection as to my having a good working knowledge in understanding for and
effective usage from what I believe are the most valued teaching tools and practices.

This reflection, my personal teaching rationale provides for a compendium of skill sets
which I have selected as being most appropriate and worthy of mastery for me to begin to utilize
in my professional charge and lifelong practice.

I think the first and most important awareness I would like to identify is in the discovery
of the class overall having and maintaining Attention. Keeping attention focused on learning and
refocusing attention should attention drift. The application of brain research and interactive tools
in educational delivery are paramount to successfully transferring information through design
and by effective means. It is the delicate dance that a well-trained educator can apply and assess
for attention in his or her classroom. Attention therefore, along with Interaction is the first and
primary basic skill set prepare for. This comes to mind with regard to buckling down and
focusing for maintaining attention. Attention is probably the foremost important of the
management areas I can identify. Without attention and focus on task or subject matter, a student
cannot even begin to become engaged to learn.

I use a “do now” exercise immediately at the onset of class to occupy and focus student’s
attention at the beginning of class. An activity that is relevant to the days topic is typically

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selected and this gives me time to take attendance and for students to organize and to turn in
homework as they settle in to the classroom. A cognitively disruptive event or thinking exercise
is also something I may use to focus students learning lens on why they are there in the
classroom, what we are discussing or learning and to promote self-regulated and/or peer
scaffolding with meaningful learning activity. I might say “Why is there a Tornado warning for
the next three hours?!”, We would of course be studying meteorology and the advent for having
a Tornado would be something that attention would be drawn to. My purpose for this would be
to focus the importance and relevance for knowing the hazards and the appreciation for those
weather anomalies such as Tornados. The class would be asked to query such things as pressure
indication equipment in the classroom, visual observations made outside, discussion of warning
indications relevant to such an event and we might therefore rule out the advent for a tornado
occurring, taking into consideration that the time of year was December may also be a reassuring
factor taken into consideration. We would have ruled out any immediate danger to us through a
cognitively disruptive event such as this. Attention therefore, would be immediately obvious and
I would have to come up a good reason for making such a claim about the tornado warning.

I assess for attention in a scanning way for physical cues. I engage students in a random
and meaningful way to see if they are engaged, I check for understanding through these means as
well as with the application for applying Bloom’s Taxonomy questioning. This can be correlated
into the areas addressing “Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and
Evaluation” through Bloom’s Taxonomy of Critical Thinking. Intrinsic and Extrinsic questioning
also feather into the applied use of this as this is intentionally applied to assembling a foundation
for learning and a meaningful voice for constructivism as a best management practice in motion.

If a student is not attentive I may try to engage them through ways in which they
personally will respond to their own individual means for becoming engaged. Practicing of
implementation of Gardiner’s Multiple Intelligences, I might apply the following kinesthetic or
tactilely relevant techniques. If a student is doodling, I might ask them to come up to the board
and draw an interpretation for what we are studying. If a student is wandering with their eyes, I
might ask them to find something of relevance to what we are talking about inside or outside the
classroom. If a student is fidgety I might ask them to act out a physical interpretation for what we

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are talking about and if a student is talking, I might ask them to discuss what we are talking
about with a classmate, maybe even the one they are chatting with.

I value the belief in professional practice that there is great value in determining and
assessing for a student’s Emotional State. “Emotion drives attention and attention drives
learning (Sylvester, 1995). All learning is state dependent: The Physiological, Emotional,
Postural, and Psychological are in and will mediate content. And these states are related to the
chemical “flavor of the moment” in the brain. Chemicals can be too high, resulting in hyper or
stressed states; Chemicals can be too low, yielding drowsiness. The learner’s state can be
influenced in the classroom with simple intervention.” (Saphier, 2008)

I fully recognize that varying mental effectiveness from brain chemistry levels and
oxygenation being provided to the brain in adequate levels is varied for each of the students at
any given time in my classroom. Necessary for attention and learning to be “in balance” with
these variables, for maximum learning and attention efficiency, there is a good chance that at any
one time student’s may be out of balance to one extreme or another through these chemical and
physiological / metabolic variants. Emotional State therefore is subject to this.

I look for emotional state while assessing for attention. I have found it necessary to find
approach methods to varied emotional states along with a never ending combination of
individual personalities to remedy negative emotional states, whatever their cause of origin may
be. I consider myself fortunate to have this skill come relatively easy and almost intuitive to me.
Through use of cognitive disruption statements and/or activities and through diagnosing and
offering remedies to build upon or address apparent emotional states, I have found that attention
is maintained through many different techniques and must be re-administered as well as assessed
for repeatedly.

A windfall for benefit in classroom is in the occurrence of laughter. “Laughter has been
shown to boost the body’s production of neurotransmitters critical for alertness and memory.
Some Studies have shown that having fun and pleasant experiences improve the functioning of
the bodies’ immune system for three days.” (Saphier, 2008)

Understandably, laughter isn’t why students come to school. Education doesn’t pay large
attention to laughter in terms of it being part of any metric or best practice or management style.

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It is through genuine kindness and acts of benevolence as well as caring, that an educator holds
“laughter” as being relevant to his/her professional repertoire. I have this belief at my core and I
practice, tolerate and encourage appropriate laughter and levity in my class room. I find that
there is not only the clinical benefit for it but there is a bond that comes from it and respect that
is earned as a secondary outcome from it that is reciprocal from student as well as to a teacher.

As important as it is to focus attention and to guide for an engaging and meaningful class
that builds or reinforces learned information from it, Learning Downtime is also an effective
practice if used appropriately to permit students to reflect and form their own understanding for
what they learned. “Humans are natural meaning seeking organisms but excessive input can
conflict that process… you can either have your learners attention or they can be making
meaning, but never both at the same time. The Brain needs time to go inside and link the present
with the past and the future. Without this, learning drops dramatically. We absorb so much
information non-consciously that downtime is absolutely necessary to process it all. The brain
has an automatic mechanism for shifting (internal and external) and for shutting down input
when it needs to.” (Saphier, 2008)

In best practices for effective time use pertinent to class scheduling, I usually leave two to
three minutes for students to reflect from the lesson and to make them ready to transition
themselves to another learning environment and to reflect on the relevance for what was learned
from the day’s lesson. I feel that with the appropriate given circumstance for time given to reflect
on the day’s topic and subject matter, students can process and construct meaning for what was
learned in just this way. I practice this and feel it is important as well as being effective. Some
class periods I encourage a free think session where students can guide the conversation with
peers within holistic and scaffolding methods as facilitated by their teacher, where unanswered
questions are met with alternative input from classmates, giving a new perspective to build on for
a combined and differentiated understanding.

An area I also found that was of great importance for organizing and managing my classroom
was that of arranging its Physical learning Space. In the beginning of the year it was
recommended that I assign seats. I thought that this was way to draconian, I wanted the student’s
to like me and I didn’t follow through with the suggestion. As it were, students sat with friends
and formed cliques in the class that I really struggled with in terms of maintaining their attention

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for half the year. I now implement a seating plan accordingly. If I had done this in the beginning
of the year, it would have helped me in learning the student’s names and would have maintained
an environment that I controlled. The management of physical space is both psychologically
effective as well as in being effective in a practical way for ease of access to the entire
classroom. With a well thought out plan for classroom design, both students and I can feel as if
we are all in a space that ‘works’ with regard to utilizing our entire classroom. My ideal
classroom will be arranged with many varied visual and physical displays and artifacts for
facilitating and teaching Earth Science. Arranging desks or lab tables in such a way as to
promote focus on instructor and to interact easily with other students was noticeably beneficial. I
found that when students were given instruction among this physical classroom arrangement that
they were more noticeably engaged and participated effectively in daily routines and activities.

Yet another area of awareness I found that I was learning to effectively manage was in
addressing Time, allocating of time, time on task, pacing, rhythm and routines. As I began to
assemble my curriculum for the year, weeks prior to the year beginning, I realized that there is an
incredible amount of NYS Standards material in Earth Science content that needs to be covered
within 180 days of instructional time. I was fortunate to have the order of curriculum instruction
in terms of structured Content Units that needed to be covered and when they were to be covered
as well as knowing approximately how long they should take to cover them. This left me with
drilling down segmented portions of a particular unit to be covered into daily ‘bite sized’ lesson
plans. These plans needed to utilize the time for each entire class in order for me to effectively
reach my goal for delivering the content required in my classroom.

This was soon to be realized by me as an incredible feat to accomplish actually. I never


counted on fire drills, snow days, sick days, days where we got off track, classroom disruptions,
and accommodations for special education, differentiated instruction and of course to persist
with consistent alternative assessment pedagogy and teaching methods for students that “just
didn’t get it”. These variables proved to be my biggest obstacles to overcome in effectively
moving through the pacing and delivery of content and curriculum, rhythm and to account for
constant assessment through both formal as well as informal ways.

Daily Routines were suggested to me to use and to live by. I hadn’t thought much about
making a routine out of my daily lesson. I wanted to take each day as it came and move into the

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lesson by feel for the flavor of the day, in terms of how the class and my psyche was. This
proved disastrous in no time at all and I was scrambling for months in the beginning to keep up
with grading, copying, gathering lab materials, preparing and planning and desperately trying to
assess for successful transfer of content information. I was a wreck, I sought assistance from
colleague’s and mentors on how to create a routine daily plan that worked to facilitate all of this.
What I came up with will be a work in progress. I began to understand how to plan and organize
myself and that it was all dependent on having an established daily routine. When I established a
routine, my students immediately responded with more clearly evidenced attention and
acceptable academic as well as classroom behavior. I think they were just waiting to see how
long it was going to take before I realized that this was mandatory and that all other teachers
were implementing these practices while I was noticeably missing this regiment and therefore,
the application of daily routines were expected.

Having a regiment of routine introduced into the classroom environment, I was more
successful in meeting the needs I had prepared for in the daily lesson. Behavior therefore became
less of an issue. With greater concentration on instruction and assessment for understanding from
instruction in a learning environment that was clearly more professional, I found that emphasis
for awareness became more clearly a rhythm for successfully chunking of information could be
made effectively. This flow or rhythm of moving along in content seamlessly was an indication
to me that effective and meaningful instruction as well as learning was evident.

Another practical skill set I had to learn was in the effective use of Discipline. Discipline
and disciplinary action fell into my routine and was the last management modification I needed
to introduce into my classroom. I found it extremely difficult to discipline my students in the
beginning of my teaching. I had no problem raising my voice to calm and quite students down
but no sooner did I do this, than another outburst or distraction would occur. Almost like ‘whack-
a-mole’. After I had a few observations from mentor’s administrators and peers, I was told in no
uncertain terms, that I must implement disciplinary actions, rules and consequences for
disruptive behavior as a policy as well as meeting and keeping academic expectations for
classwork. This included organized notebooks, homework policies and class participation as well
as for what would be acceptable classroom behavior. Once I began to actually implement these
standards and expectations, with real consequences as they were applied, I noticed the classroom

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coming about and actually beginning to become more efficient in our time spent on tasks. I saw
this as being evidenced immediately in formal and informal assessment. Grades were going up,
the class was less restless and we were moving at a good pace, almost as if the sails of a sailing
ship were trimmed, full and our heading was on course.

After a few examples were made from disciplinary action, the message was clear that I
had control of my classroom and the students felt as if they were actually learning something.
We never forgot to laugh when it was appropriate through it all. I believe my occasionally and
noticeably laughing at myself created an environment that was disarming for my students. With
respect and caution they laughed with me too. Fairness and sense of community with mutual
tolerance and understanding is fostered as well as modeled for in my classroom.

I believe through establishing a sense of fairness, fostering communal respect among all
in the class, I was able to create an environment which was capable of understanding the
differences associated between Consequences and Contingencies. First made aware to me from
the text Discipline Without Stress Punishments or Rewards by Dr. Marvin Marshall, I was taken
by surprise when I read “Consequences VS. Contingencies: Consequences are associated with
everything we do and can be positive or negative. An imposed consequence, however, only works
when a person finds value in the relationship or when the person sees value in what he is being
asked to do. Otherwise, an imposed consequence is perceived in negative terms. When a
consequence is imposed, it is often associated with a threat.” (Marshall, 2007) In providing a
classroom behavior modification practice, where options were given as consequences for
inappropriate behavior, I believe moral and the practice for ‘thinking things through’ in terms of
poor behavior became more clearly evident. Students became Self-regulated in their behavior as
an observation from this.

In forming communication bridgework for my classes, there was the need for determining
Connectivity. With regard to connecting to my students, I found that the varying degrees of
effectiveness along with professionalism I perceived as growth (from myself) were in the areas
that were specifically addressing classroom climate and management, student effort and
academic engagement, organization and instructional design as well as in lesson preparedness
and delivery, becoming a good listener, communication at a more effective level, relating high
interest attention to both students collectively as well as individually, being accessible to

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students, showing respect, exemplifying and practicing fairness, realness and never forgetting the
value in including humor and fun into my classroom. I connected to my students as a
culmination of many of these as efforts perceived by the students themselves, that they knew I
was trying hard to be a good teacher for them. As such, a connection and abridge to them was
achieved.

I had perceivably noticed an increase in my being more effective at multi-cognitive tasks


associated with multi-tasking throughout my classroom while teaching this year. This was
largely evidenced from much of the fore mentioned experiences. In comparison of this, last year
I was ‘shooting from the hip’ on a daily basis and I was teaching from instinct. I was not yet
prepared or experienced enough to deliver information transfer at a refined and organized level
as such to really have a great effect overall in my classroom. There were instances where I
would consistently experience disorganization and un-preparedness manifest within my
classroom. This ‘instinct teaching’ was evidenced from unclear information delivery and
classroom disharmony in terms of behavioral issues being most readily observed and consistent.

Consequences, expectations and routines weren’t established early on and this was a
detractor to my being effective during last year. This year was different however. I am calmer
and had some experience behind me. I was observably less stressed out. I had content from last
year that I had become reasonably comfortable with (thanks to a great mentor) and I had a better
idea over all how the school year marches on, sometimes despite your best attempts to slow it
down or to savor the moment of being in a comfort zone. Our class in the Graduate Degree
program was in at advanced level and we were aligning meaningful content related to practical
teaching and planning as well as in practicing assessment methods. The Skillful Teacher text
offered many clear advantages and opportunities to deliver methods and modalities for better,
more effective organized and professionalism in my theoretical /pedagogical delivery in the
classroom.

I have had teachers and support teachers alike comment on my growth as well as with my
building administrator’s in this regard. The changes were subtle in some areas and significantly
more noticeably radical in others. I too noticed I was more prepared and was paying more
attention to being effective and hitting all the bases so to speak with regard to having a more
overall effective teaching style.

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I noticed that within these perceivably noticeable areas of growth from this year in
comparison to last year, that I was planning for and incorporating a tempo or a pace as well as
for momentum with an organized approach to achieve certain expectations set for each class that
was reasonable. I knew from experience last year, that setting too high of an expectation for
reaching too far or too much information to cover for a lesson has it’s downfalls set firmly in
distractions that you didn’t account for like fire drills, students walking in late, students that
don’t ‘get it’, students that were disruptive and a host of other causes for interfering with a
planned outcome of expectation for lesson delivery from within a classroom. I had set reasonable
momentum expectations and goals set for each class reasonably set to account for these
distractions, yet if we had no distractions I could go deeper or farther in exploration for checking
for understanding or to allow for peer scaffolding or other practical alternate assessment methods
for ‘changing up’ the means through which information was transferred from within my
classroom.

Not having delivered some of the content that needs to be covered in Earth Science to
meet high stakes state standards for the NYS Regents level examination last year was a huge
concern. I only taught half the year as a leave replacement teacher, I remained connected to the
department and mentor and pushed in for observations in varied Earth Science teachers
classrooms to see how they were handling the content delivery differently from me as well as to
fill in the gaps I had in the content and to take note of the pacing of the content’s delivery. All
this was extremely helpful to me in seeing that all content gets covered.

Attention being paramount to the key to success in my classroom was vastly improved
this year over last year. Through many improvements in my teaching and in organizing the time
and time on tasks as well as in implementing discipline policies which I incorporated into my
classroom this year, I was able to assess the class as a whole as well as students individually. Our
textbooks in the M.A.T. program addressed many areas I was having difficulties in at length and
made clear connections to brain research and pedagogy to foster applied brain research, in order
to be effective. I incorporated differentiated methods for delivering assessment in alternative e
ways. I believe I am uniquely gifted in some ways, to have an inner understanding of how and
when to apply certain methods for reaching a student and in re-directing them to become on task
and committed to being attentive as well as self-regulating and motivated in their learning.

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I found that exploration at a greater level for Brain Research from examples within
Gardiner’s Multiple Intelligences and Bloom’s Taxonomy were areas of pedagogical study that
fascinated me. A multi-sensory approach addressing all senses needs to be applied in the
classroom in order to effectively reach all within differentiated learning styles in the classroom. I
employed many of these methods along with peer scaffolding and peer teaching opportunities as
often as I could and without much transition time to change gears to apply, after students knew
that I was trying something different. My students knew that I was not ‘shamefully’ trying to pull
off something ‘cute’ in an alternative teaching method or style when I did these things. I always
explained to them the brain research behind the method, in some cases reciting the research to
them. Whether or not it was because it was something fun, interesting or just different, my
classes always complied with great carry through, these methods we explored. It was almost that
in including those in the effort to use brain research methods, that they too wanted to see the
positivity that it claimed success for.

I believe that this observation as it became aware to me needs to be accentuated because


were it not for many things ‘clicking at once’, a virtuoso of symphonic arrangement in
integrating respect, caring, effort, preparation, content relation, preparedness, rules and
consequences, checking for understanding through varied assessment methods all at the same
time, that this extent of teaching and learning ‘out of one’s comfort zone’ or at least straying
from the norm of ‘chalk and talk’ would not occur without much success. I attest to this from
being tuned to what is going on in my classroom only after being made aware of how and where
I fell short and in making the necessary changes and alignments to teach as a skilled professional
through purposeful design, prior to being prepared more thoroughly to teach.

Another valuable awareness I learned in my becoming effective in lesson delivery in my


classroom was that of being clear and in having an understanding of Clarity when instructing. As
I am framing the learning, I embrace the big picture for the content to be delivered. I am setting
up the class for an effective segue into what will be their lesson and focus for the day. I am
connecting big points from previous learning (exercising constructivist learning) and I bridge or
connect prior learning into the new concept with overlap as seamless as possible with alternative
assessment as a means to check for understanding as we transcend into a new depth in the
subject area. I assess for understanding as I scan the students’ eyes, to see if they are on me, up

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front and not glossed over or lost. I may call out to a student or the entire class to focus on me by
saying “Eyes up front” and wait until I have all eyes on me. I may ask for reflection on content
as I begin to explicate with purpose, the transition into our new topic. I ask for involvement and
examples because I want to make sure the students are recalling previously covered material and
are motivated to make connections to build on with new material.

I make references to relevant examples from previous material covered as we move into
new areas of material, as if to make familiar territory, our basis for confidence and readily
available facts and information. I then begin treading new waters into new areas of content to be
covered. There is nothing that remains static among our content and curriculum. Earth science is
the study of well… everything. As we are covering ‘everything’, I often find “deer in the
headlights” glances on students faces. This is an assessment I make on that student’s current state
of emotion or motivation as well as understanding or lack thereof. In presenting information, I
speak as definitively as I can, making great effort’s to be clear and to not run students into mazes
of quagmire thought processes to exacerbate or promote confusion. I use graphics and
technology in the class often and will make great effort to utilize animated graphics on the
whiteboard and refer to progressive information gathering techniques to build upon a concept
which may become more diversified as we go along. I encourage the local relativity of the
community I teach in and relate lessons to the community, where a local relevance and possibly
a cultural understanding, when available are related to a lesson.

I ask for students to finish my sentences as my back is to them and I am writing on the
board, I never stop talking to them or actively listening to them. I enlist their thoughts with
agency that is clear to them; I truly require their participation and response. I will use my
intuition sometimes and know when certain students are off task or being disruptive. I call on
them by name while I am not looking at them. They know, I know what’s going on and they
don’t want me to have to stop our lesson and pay special attention to their being disruptive to our
class. I have shown that I can manage my classroom and will take the necessary course of
disciplinary actions for those that wish to test my authority or ability to remain effective in
managing the behavior of my classroom. I’ve found that students will comply when I ask them
to respond with picking up where I am in the lesson. If they were off task and were horsing
around. I realize this disruption meant that not only the students who were messing around didn’t

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‘get it’ but that the class they disrupted ‘doesn’t get it’… I then re-teach from the point where I
knew they all had understanding and walk them through the material segment that was
previously interrupted or missed.

I sometimes write hand written notes on subjects that include graphics I’ll use on the
board, definitions I’ll want the students to know and formula’s found within science content that
will be relevant to them. I check the student’s notebooks for their being diligent in keeping notes
from our daily activities. I tell students that it isn’t enough to read the information from a
textbook, I want notes taken too. My notes, although handwritten can sometimes look harried.
Despite this, I tried copying these notes and handing them out to all classes. I asked the students
to read 10 pages in their text and to outline or ‘nugget note’ the content. I told them I was going
to check their notebooks for this being done. I told them I wanted to see how they took notes. I
was surprised to see the attention to detail when I asked this of them. I had clearly 90% of the
class that took themselves (and me) seriously when I checked for this activity. 10% of the class
had little or no notes. I graded this accordingly and made it clear that we were going to have
effective notes taken in our class. I gave my hand written notes to the students. As some did not
take notes and /or took inadequate notes, this was greatly appreciated. For some special needs
student’s, this was part of my requirement for meeting their I.E.P. I found that I used my notes
that I give out regularly as reference materials in our class. Students are marking up my notes (as
instructed) and they are keeping these notes for themselves. Their textbooks aren’t used as much
as our classroom generated notes are. This is great in my estimation, I know that what I found to
be relevant and worthy of note taking and thus, what I teach is exemplified from artifacts we
create and they use in our classroom.

An area of attention that I value greatly is that of students’ Mental Engagement. As I am


establishing mental engagement, I am addressing 30 students ideally with a mindset of one. This
is no small task. I often wondered how you could teach this to a teacher. I observe teacher’s that
don’t understand this and which are clearly disengaged from their classes while they are
instructing. When 30 student’s minds and one teacher (31 minds) are in sync, the class is
productive.

Mental engagement has many forms, and needs to be custom tailored and fast acting and
responsive to meet the needs for short attention and hungry minds demanding constant

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engagement, motivation and enrichment. Sometimes I cannot engage all of my student’s
successfully. There are days where we just miss each other. There are thousands of reasons why
this occurs, I used to worry why it did and was unmerciful to myself for the entire day or on the
ride home when it did. When I realize it’s nothing I can correct for, ex: maybe they are
collectively having a bad day, I empathize and acknowledge for this observation. When I catch
it, I’ll tell them I observe that this is perceivably the case and I’ll ramp down the daily lesson and
maybe we’ll review previous material or this permits me to re-teach areas covered previously.
This is a delicate situation because the student will ask if we can “just relax today” and this
remedy is not something that can be tolerated or pacing and content building regiment as well as
reputation and respect earned in the classroom will be diminished.

As a teacher as well as a lifelong learner, I have come to terms that there is a shared
empathy for lack of a better word, for pushing the boundaries of learning and in education as a
whole. A Cognitive Empathy is identified as awareness for this as being authentic and real.
Knowing when maximum potential has been achieved in the daily lesson and when to back off
has become an important practice and part of my metric for daily assessment. As I am getting
inside of student’s heads, I am tuned in with the pace and subject’s content material we are
exploring and to what extent they understand the content. I am also tuned in to where they may
be lost or having difficulties in conceptualizing content and I am trying to see if they are tracking
toward a direction leading to a new topic or subject that is progressively relevant to our content. I
am always amazed when the latter occurs, because it is evidence to me that the work I am doing
is making sense. I try to push my student’s to the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). I seek
to find where they begin to reach their brain’s saturation point as a class and I push a tiny bit
past that point and then drop back to a stable and uniform understanding.

Cognitive Empathy therefore in my estimation, is in understanding for my student’s


capabilities and knowing what they can and cannot take in terms of material and concepts. Much
goes into each year it seems in getting to know all about each student. A teacher must manipulate
incredible amounts of data and multitask for a lesson to be “Simple” a delicate dance is done in
the lesson delivery that appears effortless. The preparation to keep things simple as well as
engaging is the biggest challenge there is in teaching.

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Whether it is a best practices tenet or a common sense awareness for working with people
in a learning environment that for many is very difficult, Encouragement becomes a soothing
and rewarding way for a learner to become aware that they are in the right place and that they
are recognized for having struggle.

Encouragement is by far the most powerful and effective, beneficial attribute anyone
person can give to another. It is not only the student who requires and desires encouragement, a
teacher who receives encouragement is also befitting of this general observation. I have had
students, colleagues and administrators, loved ones and friends give me encouragement to pursue
teaching. I have found handily that in becoming a teacher, I have engaged in the most difficult
thing I have ever done in my life. With encouragement however, it seems possible and more
importantly tolerable and likeable. From this firsthand experience, I take away the most valuable
attribute for any one educator to hold in their most used pedagogy ‘tool bag’. This is of course to
utilize and give authentic encouragement frequently to student’s and peers alike. Encouragement
is easily seen throughout my observable school day. I see it all around me in the school. I see it
given from students to other students; I see it frequently from other teachers to students and from
teachers toward other teachers. I add high expectations along with encouragement to all my
students, frequently.

When my students give me encouragement, I never get used to how extremely valuable
that one small gift is. Encouragement is an intrinsic and mutually understood uniform gesture of
kindness and acceptance. Encouragement acknowledges fear, difficulty and potential failure and
matches this with an understanding of this, yet encouragement alone may tip the balance for one
reaching a goal desired or in clearing hurdles. It is never inappropriate and it is received with the
intention from which it was intended. Sometimes encouragement is all a person needs to hang in
when all seems lost. I foster encouragement in my classroom.

Lastly, in describing what moves and motivates me, going from formal teacher training
and moving into professional practice, there are the rapid advances of Technology Integration to
be addressed, as this applies to me as an educator and as a professional. As part of an effort to
drive technology policy at the Mahopac High School, I was a volunteer presenter during
Superintendent’s Day Staff events for the past two consecutive years. I believe it to be a personal
charge and mandate for me to react to a clarion call from our government as well as from

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education industry experts to become pro-active in the school district I work in to promote
Equality of Opportunity and to teach technology skill-sets through Virtual reality, cloud
computing and to advocate for the use of personal technological devices in the classroom and in
fostering overall global citizenry.

“Equality of Opportunity means that all members of a society are given equal chances to
pursue wealth and enter any occupation or social class.” (Spring, 2008) As there is a perceivable
awareness today that the worlds’ nations are merging, in effect to foster an ever increasing
opportunity for truly global enterprise today, Equality of Opportunity is firmly correlated to
one’s ability to become technologically prepared to meet this new awareness. With regard to
promoting recent educational theory and practice for embracing 21st Century skills inclusive of
emergent media technologies in the classroom, I offer the following: “The architect of
educational policies for the global economy, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, writes in The
Work of Nations”, “Herein lies the new logic of economic capitalism: The skills of a nation’s
workforce and the quality of its infrastructure are what make it unique, and uniquely attractive,
in the world economy.” Reich draws a direct relationship between the type of education
provided by schools and the placement of the worker in the labor market. He believes that many
workers will be trapped in low-paying jobs unless their employment skills are improved. Reich
argues, “There should not be a barrier between education and work. We’re talking about a new
economy in which lifelong learning is a necessity for every single member of American
workforce.” (Spring, 2008)

As this is indicative of a global infrastructure in which physical borders of nations are


becoming non-existent, resulting from global inter-connectivity through connectivity, a more
telling definition of our economic reality today could not be truer.

I am confident that this technological pursuit integrated into my pedagogical practice will
not reflect poorly on me as I maintain this skill-set for technology integration is as important as
everything else I’ve displayed growth in through explication for my teaching rationale. The
future is very bright; however, we cannot as educators wait for someone to tell us to begin to
embrace and to teach with technology integration. This begins with us at present or we miss our
opportunity to serve our communities and our country by letting the new digital / virtual
economy get away from us.

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This very point in time is seemingly as important an advent as the industrial revolution
was. We taught then to train to be good factory workers; we need to teach now to be global
citizens and workers and technological integrators. Everything as we once knew it is changing
and we need to re-align ourselves, young and old alike to this paradigm shift. A ‘Sea Change’ is
at hand globally with regard to education and technologies’ integration. I am making the
necessary accommodations needed to foster and align with this embrace in my classroom as well
as personally in an authentic shift to embrace and accommodate as well as to foster and promote
this new revolution.

I have had some of the best role model educators, mentors, administrators and personal
life examples I could have possibly asked for in this experience rich journey within this
academic and professional career transition. I have become ready to do what I am doing from
becoming prepared to do it throughout the sum and the entirety of my whole life. I believe the
adage holds true that “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” and reciprocally
“When the teacher is ready the student will appear.” Much of teaching is living in the moment
and each moment can never be fully planned for. This is a career involving a million moving
parts, each having its own trajectory and each having its own self-determination. Young people
are prepared and are given the meaning of many of their life’s questions from these teacher’s
they’ll encounter. Some of their questions will never be spoken of or asked nor discussed in their
homes. A teacher therefore, when he or she least expects, becomes a gateway or facilitator to a
human transition, through which they become included in subtle as well as intensely turbulent,
sometimes persistent and chaotic times in everybody’s life. It is therefore an exceptional person
that is capable of becoming a teacher. It is a personal belief held by me that a teacher exposed to
this organized chaos can be instrumental in the transitions of the lives of young people, providing
an exceptionally meaningful, indelible groove or fingerprint on a young person’s life. There
appears to be no end in sight for the institution for education as long as there are young people
(or the young at heart in all life’s station’s) needing information, guidance, motivation, support,
empathy, tolerance, encouragement and preparation for their life’s journeys… Fortunately, there
will always be a teacher.

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Bibliography:

The Skillful Teacher Building your Teaching Skills, Sixth Edition 2008, Research for Better
Teaching, Inc., Acton, MA.

American Education 13th Edition, Joel Spring, 2008, McGraw – Hill Companies, 1221 Avenue of
the Americas, New York, NY, 10020

Discipline without Stress Punishments or Rewards Second Edition, Dr. Marvin Marshall, 2007,
Piper Press, P.O. Box 2227 Los Alamitos, Ca., 90720

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