Personal and Professional Qualities
Introduction
As a tall, confident, and intelectual individual who has always loved school and
learning, teaching has always seemed like a natural fit for me. I have always had a
strong desire to want to help people and have put a lot of effort into becoming a person
that is honourable and respectable. I have been naturally gifted with the ability to
understand concepts quickly and explain them in an understandable way. I have
always been a natural leader and I enjoy being in a position of leadership, though I also love working with people. I believe that the qualities that I have, the choices that I have made to lead a professional lifestyle, and the love that I have for education are all aspects that would make me a great teacher.
This section will give an outline of some of the personal and professional qualities that I have and that will help me to be a great teacher. This will start with my interest in teaching, followed by my familiarity with school policies and culture, and will finish with my current professional development.
Interest in Teaching
Ever since I was in school I have wanted to be a teacher. I have always loved school and
loved the idea of people helping other people to grow in their knowledge so that they can be
successful. The education system is a beautiful one. When I was in school I loved the
opportunity to interact with my peers and with my teachers. I thought that being a teacher
seemed like the greatest job of all time.
Since graduating I have had time to consider the idea that I had in high school to become a
high school teacher, and the more that I have thought about it, the more that I wanted to move
into education. I love interacting with people, and as many people as I can, and I also love
helping people achieve their goals. These are two things that teachers get to do on a daily
basis.
I have had many opportunities to be involved in events that have led me to believe that I
would enjoy teaching, and that I would be a good teacher. I have been a councilor many
weeks at summer camps, I have been a youth leader for 2 years at my church, I have taught
Sunday school there weekly for 6 years, and I have even had the opportunity to preach in the
church as well. I also spend a lot of time officiating highschool volleyball matches during the year. All of these events have direct links to teaching in the leadership and presentation skill that are required, and they lead me to believe that I would have a lot of success at teaching.
I do a lot of these things because I love to help people, especially youth. I really enjoy the interactions that I have with the youth in my youth group, and I would love to deticate my career to helping people like them have success in their schooling and hopefully in their lives.
Because of my past experiences, I am very confident that I want to be a teacher and that I will do well at it. I have had a lot of experience teaching and leading, and I am looking forward to being able to do that in the school setting.
Familiarity with School Policies & Culture
I have spent one semester at River East Collegiate as a teacher candidate, and I have become quite familiar with their school policies. I also spent the fall as an assistant coach to their junior varsity boys volleyball team. By doing this I became quite familiar with some of the types of students that River East has, and I also was able to see how the head coach dealt with issues like finding rides to games for students, collecting money for registration, dealing with parents and students that didn't agree with playing times and other issues that arise when coaching school teams.
During my one semester teaching I did not have any major incidents with students where I needed to understand the guidelines quite well but I did have a lot of discussions with my cooperating teachers about what types of policies there were in the schools. We had many discussions about how they dealt with cell phones, late assignment, late attendance or absences, hats, students who have support at home compared to a non-supportive household, how to deal with parents whether they are overbearing or over protective, how to deal with failing students and other school policies like that. I found these conversations very interesting and valuable and I developed a strong understanding of what the policies of River East were.
I was also able to be a part of the math club at River East Collegiate. Through the experiences that I was able to have helping with volleyball and math club I was able to see some of the different aspects of the school that make up what it is as a whole. River East is a large school and they have a lot going for them, strong sports programs, a computer science program, a large international exchange program, AP programs, many school trips, a program, a multimedia program, and even more. They are a school that is focussed on excellence and want to give their students the best opportunity to succeed.
Professional Development
I am early in my professional career, so I am trying to surround myself with as much professional development as I can. Aside from going to the University of Manitoba to take a full load of education courses, I have also attended some professional development days both at the university and at River East, and I have also created an online professional learning network.
Professional Development Days
LGBTTQ* Inclusion Training
On February 9, 2015 I attented an LGBTTQ* Inclusion Training professional development day. At this seminar we talked about how teachers are to make sure that teachers are using the correct terminology when talking to or about students who are LGBTTQ*, or when they run different activities in their classrooms, ensuring that all people are included equally. We learned what different pronoun's to use depending on who they are, and they also discussed ways of helping student who are in the LGBTTQ* community to be part of the class and not to feel excluded in any way. This was a valuable professional development day to attend because this is a large cause of bullying and a relevant topic in our school systems in Manitoba today.
ManACE SAGE
On October 24, 2014 I attended the ManACE SAGE professsional development day. At this event we talked a lot about how different teachers are running their computer science classes. I learned a lot of different techniques and strategies that could be implemented in a classroom and had the opportunity to talk with and meet a lot of very experienced teachers. This was an incredibly valuable day for me as I consider ideas for running a successful computer science program in a school some day.
MTS Training
On March 12, 2015 a representative from MTS talked to our class about professional conduct and the responsibilities that all teachers have to be positive role models for the students. He explained how careful teachers need to be with how they deal with students, and also how they interact on social media. See our handout here.
School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports (PBIS)
how we should handle misbehavior in the classroom and how we can prevent it. We recieved a lot of good materials that defined the seriousness of misbehaviours, 17 classroom management strategies, and a discription of their three tiered model for behavioral intervention. During my time at River East there was a professional development day where we learned about PBIS,
I have also done some research througout my education degree on different computer science based topics such as Kodu, App Development and Internet Privacy. These can all be seen here.
For further research I have been keeping up an online professional learning network. Here I have set up diigo, netvibes, and twitter accounts so that I recieve blogs, feeds and tweets that are focussed on new and inovative ideas for education, specifically computer science education. These can all be viewed here.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics where I have access to a large selection of resources specifically for mathematics teachers. This subscription has allowed me to find many articles about ideas for math teaching that have challenged my own views. One example is this article, by Craig Sjoberg, David Slavit, and Terry Coon, about using writing in math class.
In my last year of being a teacher candidate, I had 3 evaluations done of my teaching, and I also had a summative evaluation done collaboratively with my academic advisor, my two cooperating teachers, and myself. These sum up how my time as a teacher was viewed by myself and by the professionals who observed me.
SRSS Fall 2015 Summative River East Winter 2015 Summative River East 2014 Fall Summative
Reflections
Through the experiences that I've had and the qualities that I have, I believe I would be a great teacher. I have put a lot of effort into learning and growing in my professionalism through professional development and through practice in schools. I also plan on continuing to grow and learn by surrounding myself with other respectable teachers and by continuing to read and study from my professional learning network.