This course has been one of my favorite courses that I have taken in my college career. I feel as if I learned a lot of valuable information that I can take with me when I am teaching. A lot of the activities and requirements of this class were new to me, so they were a lot of fun to complete. Honestly, I think this class should have to be taken by all education students, not just English students. There was so much information and tips for being a successful teacher and I truly think any type of teacher, of any subject, could really benefit from the information provided in this class. I am glad that I was required to take this class! All of the readings, concepts, theories, and discussions in this class are information that I will take with me into my teaching. I really loved Cris Tovani's book. I can definitely see myself using a lot of the strategies that were provided in the book. I also really liked the article on pop culture. I have always known that pop culture needs to be integrated into the classroom, but this article really helped me to see why and how. Overall, I enjoyed every article and book that was required of us to read in this classroom and I gained a lot of useful and interesting information from them all. I can't wait to pass them on to my education friends.
I have never been a blogger, so the idea of blogging for our assignments was new to me. I actually really like this idea though. I think it is a great way for us to show our work to one another. I could definitely see myself continuing to blog in the future or maybe even having my students do it.
The book talk was extremely beneficial. Being that I didn't become a heavy reader until college, I don't have a ton of book recommendations that I can give to my students. After listening to all of the different book talks, I now have that many more books that I can recommend to my students. I found myself interested in every book that was talked about and I am excited to read them and hopefully get them in my classroom library when I am teaching.
The mini-lesson was another project in this class that I found very useful. First of all, it was useful because it helped me to gain practice teaching. I loved being able to receive feedback and tips on how I can better my lesson. Second of all, I thought it was useful to see all rest of my peers present lessons as well. It helped me to get a lot of lesson ideas that I can use when I am teaching.
Finally, I think the three week unit plan was the project that I am going to benefit from the most. It was very challenging and took a lot of time...A LOT of time, but it was worth it. It helped me gain practice with creating lesson plans, managing time, and I think it is something I can potentially use in my future interviews. I was very happy with the way my unit plan turned out and I know creating it will help me to create lesson plans in the future as well.
I completed all the assignments in this class to the best of my ability and I really think they all will help me to be that much more of a successful teacher in the future. I will now be able to use theories and strategies that I didn't have knowledge of until I took this class. Actually, I plan on keeping every book and article that we were required to read and saving them so that I can look at them later on when I am teaching my own classroom. I can not wait to be a teacher and I know this class has pushed me that much closer to becoming a successful one!
