Owencourtney 611reflection
Owencourtney 611reflection
12/17/15
EDUC 611
Due:
Dr. Peck
Education 611 Reflection
What do you know now that you didnt know at the beginning of the
course?
Upon reflection, I can honestly say that I am walking away from this class
with the most practical knowledge, strategies, and activities that I can apply to any
classroom setting, out of all my classes since. While this may seem like an over the
top praise, it is true when I look at every class I attended. Each class started off with
an activity to engage the students and activate prior knowledge- a type of activity
and strategy that most teachers either should or already do implement in their
classroom every day or before each lesson. Each activity was also fun and could
then be taken the next day and applied in the classroom to any grade level, with
some modifications.
Our class focused on conversations in group work, which is often the dread of
every student (Classic joke: Let my group members lower my casket into the
ground, so they can let me down one last time.) I found every conversation I had
with a group member beneficial. The beauty of our grad classes is that we are
surrounded by different teachers who are in the classroom everyday- and I didnt
realize how much I could learn from them and their experiences until we were
forced to communicate and apply our experiences to the topics and strategies at
hand, which led to deeper learning and understanding of how we can use these
materials in different ways.
In some of the first classes, you introduced us to different books you
recommended for our classes and for read-alouds. I can say that I now have a better
understanding of how to choose appropriate books for read alouds and how to
prepare for those experiences to help my students understand the text and learn
from the lesson.
What did you learn from the readings, activities, and projects in this class
to improve your knowledge of using different methods and materials for
literacy instruction?
I have to say that the readings we had in this class are ones that I will
actually use in my classroom. Sometimes you have education classes where you
read just textbooks. I dont plan on using that textbook again. What I plan on using
is a book that helps me with classroom management (CAF) or teaches me a new
way to speak to and encourage my students (WTW). I appreciate the readings we
had for this class, because instead of renting them and returning them, I went out of
my way to purchase them. I plan on using Daily 5 in my classroom one day, and
when I do, I want CAF to be there leading me into an organized, more practical
management of my class, and a reminder of how to phrase certain things to
empower my students.
As I mentioned before, I loved the activities. I am an activities kind of girl. If I
didnt mention it before, I wrote my final 20 page research paper for Dr. Barbers