Julie's+221+Reflection

During the course of the semester, my professional knowledge grew and developed through thoughtful introspection, active engagement in current issues surrounding education, and use of academic language. The intimate size of the class served to provide time for every student to express his (but more commonly, her) opinion about the topic into which we were inquiring. Because of this, we all learned about each other’s middle school familiarities and were able to draw connections from our own experiences to the students at Garry Middle School. Reflection was never a large part of education for me, but after this semester, I understand the importance of asking questions and pondering what could have been done differently in a given lesson. My use of academic language has also greatly improved. I now know the difference between pedagogy and ‘pre-during-post’ activities, between direct instruction from discussion based learning, and from scaffolding to student voice. Also acquired was a glimpse into the so-called ‘real world’ of education. Common Core was studied extensively and critically. News articles were given and digested as we all sought to find what they really meant to us as learning teachers. However, academic language becomes nothing if it is simply words. We have been taught to make the most of these instructional strategies and to take them more than at face value. Overall, this semester has been an incredible opportunity to dip our toes deeper into waters of our future careers.