My Summative!

As the semester comes to a close, and the bittersweet finale of the Innovation Lab experience draws near, I wanted to be able to mention all of the major themes I found valuable and resonate most with me, and I think that I was able to do that with my concept map. In it, I basically thought over the entire experience this semester, from the first class in a windowless room in Horace Mann, to presenting my most valuable experiences to a room of fellow colleagues, professors, teachers, and administrators. This semester, to me, has been a massive progression and learning curve for me. Coming in, I was anxious about how we would function as a class, riding the bus every Thursday with Steve from RIC to Central Falls, and going out, I feel anxious that we will no longer do that (though I hope to maintain a relationship and a presence at the high school).

            One of my biggest and most profound changes this semester is developing and adapting a professional identity. While I am still changing, only having taught a few times in a real classroom, I feel like through observing and having a sort of constant mentor-like role from those involved with the Innovation Lab has really changed my perspective on teaching. I had a lot of trouble coming in developing an essential question, and it even took me a month or two into the semester to figure out what that was, mostly because I was still surveying who I wanted to be as a teacher. Observing and adapting different parts of many teachers we observed has helped drastically with figuring that out, as well as debriefing and sorting through those observations with Dr. Horwitz, Josh, Kim, Dr. Gallo, my classmates, and the many others who helped along the way.

            Another big thing for me this semester was figuring out how to properly plan and manage for effective classrooms. Of course, I haven’t applied most of what we learned yet, but I feel comfortable talking, at least, about things like backward design, building scaffolds for students, gradual release, and managing a classroom positively. Working with the student panel helped in this aspect, because it reassured me that students want creative lessons, not just busywork. Students want to learn, and want to grow. Teachers need to recognize this and not fault students when behavior becomes a problem. As Vice Principal Silva said, “Every day is a new day.”

            Building holistic educational relationships was another aspect of this course I found resonates with me. I’ve spent so much time in the education program learning pedagogy, issues in modern education, and lesson planning, that I hadn’t given much thought to building relationships with parents yet. It’s funny, because the parent-teacher relationship is such an integral part of every student’s life, and I honestly hadn’t given it one thought until we met and talked with parents. That was awesome, because now I know that parents want the same things we want: great lesson plans, and passion for educating their children.

            As for my most valuable experiences this semester, three come to mind. The student panel was probably my favorite portion of the entire course, and I wish we had gotten to speak with them for much longer than we did. They spoke so eloquently about what they wanted in a teacher; what they expected for us in regards to preparation and dedication. I felt inspired and energized by their enthusiasm for learning. Secondly, I loved the talk we had with Troy about developing relationships with students. Finding things in common with students to develop relationships, recognizing that students have bad days and that you need to move past them, and just overall having an awesome outlook on what can sometimes devolve into an authority game between teacher and student. Lastly, my third, but not last valuable experience was just walking into the classroom as the teacher for the first time at Central Falls. I felt great; energized by the experience of teaching real, living students who say “good morning” to me and want to learn from me. I can’t wait to teach again.

            As a conclusion, I’d like to thank Dr. Horwitz and Dr. Gallo for engineering the partnership between RIC and Central Falls and say that I am proud to have been part of the first class of students to experience it. I also want to thank Josh, Kim, all the teachers who let us observe their classes, and the students at Central Falls who served as awesome learning experiences in their own way and inspired me to become the best teacher I can.