Learning Letter

Dear Dr. Agriss,

I was able to learn many things by taking this class in terms of my growth as a teacher. One of the largest developments that I have undergone by taking this course lies in my ability to plan lessons for my students. I had only planned maybe a handful of lessons for my future students, and up until now, I had only thought that the best thing to do was to just plan a week or two in advance and call it good. I never thought that I would be both learning about the planning process of whole units and planning a whole unit myself. I feel that this assignment has influenced my growth as a teacher because it has allowed me to see the bigger picture and the overall goal of what I’m trying to accomplish in teaching my students during a unit. Without the unit plan and the steps that were taken in this class to design it I doubt I would be able to plan as effectively for my students as I can now do after completing the assignment.

The mini lesson also showed me where my strengths and weaknesses are as a teacher, through that assignment I learned that I needed to work on an end goal and defining a purpose for lessons for my students early on, because if they don’t have purpose they’re more likely to come away from the assignment with little being learned. I thought I had learned this when we read Cris Tovani’s work, but I think its something that I still need to work on and carry with me throughout my teaching career.

Other texts that we have covered that have had a large influence on me have been Kelli Gallagher’s Readicide as well as Stephen Brookfield’s Discussion as a Way of Teaching. Both texts have shown me how to motivate my students to both find a purpose in reading and group work and Brookfield’s work has shown me how to have both interesting and productive discussions by establishing ground rules early on and using methods such as the Circle of Voices to make sure that every one of my future students has a chance to participate effectively in the discussion should they wish to do so. Overall, I feel I have learned a lot about both what I excel in as a teacher and what I need to improve on as a teacher for the sake of my future students. By taking this class, I have also gained access to a variety of helpful texts to improve teaching for both myself and my students. In short, I learned a lot from both you and this course, and hope to apply what I have been taught to improve teaching for myself and my students.

Best regards,

Shawn Peterson