Strengths and Areas of Growth 

Strengths: 

Reflective/Open to Constructive Criticism - I have a strong growth mindset. During my student teaching placement after every day I would take 10 minutes to write in my journal the things that went good, and bad and then I would reflect on what I could change for the next day. I am a life-long learner who encourages others to provide me with feedback on ways I can improve my teaching. 

Building Relationships- I faithfully take the time to connect with each student and foster a solid and genuine connection, my faculty supervisors and cooperating teachers highlighted this in my reflections.  

Creating Lessons - I am good at breaking ideas and concepts down into smaller steps and supporting my words with visuals, exemplars, games etc., engaging the students by using a variety of strategies, and incorporating differentiated instructions to ensure I am supporting all multiple intelligences. 

Areas of Growth: 

Confidence - I need to be more confident in the work I do- I spend more time than needed on planning things because I review things over and over because I am not confident in what I have created. 

Flexibility- As a type A person, who spends lots of time and effort making the perfect lesson, I struggle when things do not follow as planned. When the unknowns arise it makes me anxious, and I have a hard time accepting things that unexpectedly pop up. Throughout my placements, I have made improvements but still am working on being more flexible. 

Self Care- I need to learn the importance of taking time for myself to ensure I show up each day providing my students with my best self.  I am a perfectionist and as I mentioned I spend a lot of time going over things more than needed and spending hours on end planning the “perfect lesson”- I need to learn to let go and make sure that I separate school and home life so that I can avoid burnout.