CONTEMPLATION
CONTEMPLATION
Reflection for the Entire Course (FS1)
Field study 1 introduced us to the learner’s behavior in the different phases of development, school environment and the school community. It offered us opportunities and prospects for career development as we observe the virtual classrooms, school facilities, teachers and the students. This observation course provided us avenues to enhance our communication skills as we exchange ideas with our fellow field study students, our cooperating teachers and learners. This observation includes the way teachers interact with each other, with students, with parents and other stakeholders
In this course, we learned new things that we can apply when its also our turn to teach. This course really prepared us in becoming an effective and efficient teacher.
Pedagogical content knowledge is a type of knowledge that is unique to teachers, and is based on the manner in which teachers relate their pedagogical knowledge (what they know about teaching) to their subject matter knowledge (what they know about what they teach). It is the integration or the synthesis of teachers' pedagogical knowledge and their subject matter knowledge that comprises pedagogical content knowledge. We realized that mastery of the content and applying developmentally appropriate and meaningful pedagogy grounded on content knowledge and pedagogy are important to help students develop their skills and attain the different learning outcomes.
An ideal school environment works to build safe learning spaces for students. The environment plays a vital role in the learning of the students. Using different approach and building classroom environment that will make every student feel like they belong and accepted is very important because it may become a source of motivation for them to work on their full potential and it will eventually contribute to their academic progress. Moreover, we believe that an ideal school environment embraces the idea that all students can learn and no one will be left behind.
Every child brings to the classroom the morals, beliefs, and attitudes that are learned at home. The cultural values and beliefs that minority children bring from home will most often clash with those of the school culture. Accordingly, a student's academic success does not depend solely on what happens in school, rather there are a number of external influences which can play a powerful role. Therefore, as teachers we are responsible in designing multiple instructions in response to the individual differences and diverse learning styles of the learners.
The purpose and importance of teaching and learning materials is to make lessons interesting, learning easy and enable teachers to easily express concepts. These resources allow the learner to explore the knowledge independently and provide a valuable routine in the teaching and learning process.
Assessing learning outcomes is a form of program and curriculum evaluation with the goal of continuous program improvement. In connection to this, as teachers, we should provide frequent feedback because it is a way to communicate students’ performance for the purpose of improvement. As described by Hattie,1999 “it is the most powerful single moderator that enhances achievement”. Therefore, assessing learning outcomes using different rubrics and criteria is as important as providing feedback to students.
Teachers enable countries to progress socially and economically. By engaging in community-responsive practices, teachers play a key role in creating school cultures that support and sustain effective community partnerships. In order to fulfill this role, teachers must continuously develop personally and professionally.
Field Study 1 taught us countless points to consider on our chosen profession. It also served as our preparation for our chosen career. If we will all apply what we have learned in this course, we believe that we can be one of the highly principled, morally upright, innovative and globally competent individuals capable of meeting the needs of industry, public service and civil society which are written on our University’s mission.