High Expectations
Going into my student teaching experience, I firmly believed that all students had the ability to succeed. Upon completing my student teaching, my opinion is unchanged. My strong academic background in psychology, through the courses I had taken to prepare myself for teaching, taught me that students learn only when they can learn. It is the teacher's job to ensure that the material is accessible to all students, and to meet students where they are. Everyone has the ability to learn the same content, regardless of ability or circumstances, with the right teaching.
I carried these beliefs firmly throughout my teaching experience. Even though I taught different level classes, my objectives for each class were always identical. The route to reach those objectives, however, varied depending on the strengths and weaknesses of those classes. For example, the inclusion class often required much more scaffolding than other classes. However, they were always able to complete and succeed in the same learning activities as the honors class. By providing the inclusion class with more detailed instructions, helping them work through examples, and spending more time exploring the content, the inclusion class was able to meet the same learning objectives as all of the other classes I taught. Through intensive use of strategies to meet the needs of diverse learners, all students can master content, regardless of their perceived ability. [5]
Additionally, I quickly learned during my student teaching that each of my students had a complex, individual life. Not only were we all in the midst of a pandemic, each of these students was facing their own problems and complications which made learning more difficult. By taking a more socially aware and holistic approach to working with these students, I was able to help them learn from a more realistic footing. As students were already attending school from home, no homework was assigned. I set my expectations to what students would be able to learn and apply during class, not what they could achieve through outside work. [13]
The above two documents are the instructions and worksheets given to students to complete a forest ecosystem online simulation through Gizmos. The left document was given to the college level classes, while the right document was given to the honors level classes. The college level worksheet contains simplified instructions and questions focused closer to the learning objectives for the lesson, while the honors level worksheet included questions that went beyond the lesson objectives to provide increased depth of knowledge. Both levels were held to the same standard of learning through this activity, however, the college level classes were simply provided with more structure to achieve the learning goals, while the honors level classes were provided with additional support for further learning.