Future Learning Goals
Future Learning Goals
As I was first considering my future learning goals, I found myself struggling. Multiple times I opened my laptop to work on this essay only to stare at a blank screen and not make any progress. I wondered what was wrong. I spent my life learning and now I could not think of future learning goals. When I was younger, I did my schooling and graduated high school. After that, I had my college graduation and entered the teaching profession. Finally, I will be graduating with my Master of Arts in Education (MAED) in a couple short months. My whole life has been dedicated to learning, working toward degrees that would set me on my current path in life. With no plans for future formal education, it is up to me to decide what learning will look like in the future.
When I felt stuck in this assignment, I wondered many things. I wondered if I was burnt out from learning and teaching. I wondered if I have just been going through the motions my whole life. I wondered if this was the right path for me. I wondered if everyone else was more passionate, educated, successful, motivated, etc. than me. Why could I not come up with learning objectives for myself? Was it because I had a particularly stressful week with report cards due, parent teacher conferences, family visiting, and feeling like I was falling behind because of this roadblock I faced every time I tried to complete this assignment?
As the other stressors in my life subsided and I had the time to dedicate to this assignment, I was able to push the negative thoughts away. I did some reflecting and jotted down notes of learning goals I have. Once I started, I felt inspired. There were dozens of things I made note of that I want to learn more about or improve in regard to teaching. I realized, it wasn’t that I lost my passion, was unmotivated, or felt unsuccessful that prevented me from making these goals. It was that there was so much that I wanted to learn and improve that I had been feeling overwhelmed. Now that I am done with formal schooling (for now at least), my learning is in my own hands. Though there are many things I want to learn and accomplish in the future, I have decided some of the major ones I want to take on are using trauma-informed instruction, exploring service learning opportunities, and becoming a teaching mentor.
One area I plan to continue developing is my use of trauma-informed instruction. In my classroom, I recognize that students bring a wide range of experiences with them to school everyday. These experiences affect how they learn, behave, and interact with others. Because of this, I want to deepen my understanding of how trauma impacts student development and learning and implement trauma-informed strategies into my classroom to support all students.
Over the past year, my professional development has included being trained in Heather Forbes’ Classroom 180: A Framework for Creating, Sustaining, and Assessing the Trauma-Informed Classroom. Through this training, I gained a better understanding of how trauma impacts student learning and development, and how this affects their ability to engage in classroom activities. The Classroom 180 Framework is an excellent resource for me to use to develop my classroom to create an environment where students feel safe, supported, and understood. I have a better understanding of this framework, and now I want to work toward implementing some of its strategies into my classroom. More specifically, I will start by utilizing resources on zones of regulation and stress tolerance paired with strategies of relationship building, establishing routines, and empathetic response from Classroom 180 to work toward having a more trauma-informed classroom.
Volunteering has had a major impact on my life. However, it is something that I have not done much recently as I have found myself busy in my career. In order to find my personal passion for service as well as instill it in a new generation, I want to explore service learning and how it can be integrated into elementary education. Service learning provides students with opportunities to connect learning with meaningful actions to benefit a community. I am interested in learning more about how community service experiences can help students develop empathy, responsibility, and leadership while learning more about the world around them.
In order to effectively implement this with young students, I need to discover service projects that are age appropriate, identify community needs, and find ways to integrate service with classroom learning. Kiwanis has been an important organization in my life. Being a part of this service organization through Builder’s Club, Key Club, Circle K, and Kiwanis for a majority of my life has helped me develop my passion for service and recognize its importance in creating a greater community. I am interested in creating a K-Kids club at my school, a branch of Kiwanis for elementary students. My local Kiwanis club as well as online resources on the K-Kids website can be used to help me accomplish my goal of creating more service learning opportunities for students.
A third area I would like to pursue is further developing my skills to be able to effectively share my knowledge with other educators. Throughout my time in the classroom and in the MAED program, I have gained valuable experiences and knowledge that have improved my instruction and helped me become a more confident teacher. I want to share my knowledge by becoming a teaching mentor. This might look like being a mentor teacher for student teachers or new teachers, professional collaboration colleagues, or possibly a career change focused on teacher preparation. Whatever the future has in store for me, I want to learn how to share my knowledge through productive communication, professional collaboration, and reflective practice centered around educator growth and development.
My goal is to become a mentor to current and future educators that develops trusting relationships, gives constructive feedback, and provides structured support. The American Institutes for Research has a Mentor Toolkit that I can use to learn more about the best practices for mentoring. Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching by Elena Aguilar is another book I can use as a guide for understanding effective strategies necessary for mentoring and coaching educators that align with my goal.