Instructional practice is a place that I expected to learn a lot about in this semester, and that is exactly what happened.  Begining back in the summer when we began the Foxfire experience, and our study of John Dewey's book, I began to think about my educational experiences and how they relate to what I want to do in the classroom.  John Dewey makes the comparison of traditional education and progressive education in his book Experience and Education (Dewey 1938).  Dewey explains traditional education as a classroom where the chairs are all in rows, facing a board where the teacher stands and lectures, and students take notes and read their textbook.  Reflecting upon my educational experiences this is the predominant style of teaching I experienced in school.  This is not the way I want to run my classroom.

 

     Dewey explains progressive education as a teacher who teaches using experiences.  A teacher can relate the class content to things that are happening to the world at that time or things that have happened in the past to help students make connections between the content and the real world.  Not only this, but the teacher gives some educational independence to the students.  I was able to do this some in our classroom this semester.  We made a stations style lesson where students rotated and worked through different labs or activities with some instruction, and this freed up us as teachers to help more students then we would be able to if we just lectured.  After the first class that we did stations, the students said they really enjoyed that style of learning, so we planned more station style class days.  This style of teaching falls in line with Dewey's philosophy of using more hands-on activities to teach instead of just simply lecturing to students and hoping they get it.  

 

     One thing that helped me learn so many new instructional practices is that I have never had any teaching experience prior to this program.  I was not an education major, I have never had any education classes that discussed instructional practices, classroom management, scaffolding, or differentiation.  However, with our type of clinical placement, I have been exposed to a number of different instructional practices.  We have learned some ways and reasons to teach our students in different ways.  In our exceptional learner lab, we have discussed how to better aid special needs as well as gifted students.  We talked about what things special needs kids have trouble with, some of our personal experiences in the classroom with SPED kids, and how we handled different situations.  These conversations have helped me make better decisions about what types of assignments and support I give to my students with special needs.  In the same way, these conversations have helped me push my gifted students to think more critically and make more meaningful connections.  Similar conversations as well as analyzing and determining the level of readiness of English language learners in our ELL exploration has helped me understand how to better help my Hispanic students understand the content.  There is a lot of vocabulary in biology that is difficult for individuals who struggle with the English language.  

 

     The Biology department at Habersham had a science consultant come to the school and help us with ideas about how to better teach our students.  I was able to go to one day of the training we had with her, but I really wish I was able to go to both days.  The day I went to the only real instructional practice assistance we got was the suggestion that the state wants the students to work more with a phenomenon.  We were told that the state wants teachers to present a phenomenon that is seen in the world, and have the students research that phenomenon and make connections to the topic being taught in class.  We were able to do this, but the students did not really enjoy that style of learning.