Earth Science & Teaching

My strengths as a student would be that I am a good listener and I know how to process the information I learned rather than forgetting everything I learned in the same day. I also know how to communicate with other students, I used to be the shy kid in college but I figured out that class is more enjoyable discussing it with people I never met before. However, my biggest weakness as a student is that I am a procrastinator and never enjoyed doing the homework on my own.

My strengths as a teacher, well with teaching being new to me I would want to able to reach every students mind and make an impact on how I can teach effectively. I really want to be the teacher everyone can remember and say they learned a lot from me. The biggest weakness as a teacher is that I tend to focus all my energy on the stressful situations when I need to learn how to breathe.

When teaching earth science, I feel most confident with all this material because its' all easy to understand. We live on this earth so having a basic understanding would be helpful for the students and this topic is to easy understand. However, teaching something is different than knowing something. I feel like my weakness would be struggling with explaining it correctly.

Personal Plans

My Personal plans for this class was to pass it, but now that I am in my first teaching course I want to actually learn this material. In my past classes I went through the motions to pass and I learned that all the material I was taught left my brain. I plan is to actually REMEMBER what I learned so I can TEACH this to young learners.

Ungrading

Once the professor told me this was an ungraded course my eyes lit up because I thought I could do what I always did and go through the motions. However, I see what my professor wants us to do with this, she wants everyone to pass but also more importantly LEARN everything with as little stress as possible. I would love to see more professors do this because this class should be a place where we LEARN and not stress.

Me

When I first started out this class I was intimidated of this e-portfolio assignment because I have never done anything like this before. Being in a college classroom is something I am used to but this class is very different from the rest. I feel I have done a good job at strengthening my strengths. I have met and collaborated with all my classmates like I said I was. After being in a college I found this to be the most helpful and reassuring feeling when it comes to learning. I believe my personal weakness in class would be i am not as engaged in my studying like I want to be.

Goals

The goals I set at the beginning of the class have been good reminders to what I what to achieve in this class. I feel like I have been doing a good job at keeping up with my goals but I also feel I can do more for myself. I have been to every class and I am learning a lot from my professor by doing that, but I need to put more time aside for studying the new material. I spend about 1-2 hours for this class and I can see that my knowledge of the material is mediocre. I would give my current self an even 80% because I am completing my work however, I don't feel like I am doing my best work. With all this being said I would want to change my focus and study the material in my free time. This will help me practice what I know, I can also go the professors office hours for more information & help.

Teaching

For this being my first teaching course in college I still feel nervous to all these new concepts that I have to teach with no experience of teaching. Teaching earth science is fun but the pace we are taking to learn and teach the material has been a challenge for me. I still need get comfortable with learning about how to be a teacher. With time I know I can figure this out but everything seems to be happening very fast. The one thing that is reassuring is my e-portfolio because it shows everything I have done this semester. It is also a reminder what I have left to do and I want my best work to be public.

Class/Teacher Interaction

In the end, I was there in class 90% of the time because I was either sick or needed to take care of things at home. There was this one time where I did sleep through class... However, When I was present in class I spent my time listening to lectures and participating in discuss. I will still be honest, I was on my phone quite often. Outside of the classroom I did what I said I would and got this ePortfolio done! Participation is huge when it comes to understanding material and I found myself obtaining more knowledge as I listened to the professor.

Practice work

The practice work in this class was easy and especially the labs because most of them were fun. In this class, I turned in most of the labs and some I missed because I was sick. However, I never actually went to the professor for help and did get any of these corrected. I can see how my grade for that looks the way it does.

ePortfolio

As soon as the semester started I got to work on my ePortfolio and created my URL. Throughout the semester I got plenty of feedback on my work, the professor had all students given their opinions on our work. this helped a lot because we were actually able to share ideas with each other to make our stuff better. For the final product of my ePortfolio I am so happy the way it came out. This assignment wasn't easy but it feels good to be done.

Overall class

Overall, looking back at this semester I am most proud of actually getting through all my courses because it was easy staying up on all my work. However, there is something I would change to make my time more valuable. I wish I could have focused more on learning more about the different subjects then just having basic knowledge on it. With everything being said I would grade myself the letter C because like I said I only hav basic knowledge. I am happy with this grade? No, but I also can't lie and say I did the best I can do. I also believe the professor would give me the same grade because she also saw what I was putting into this class.