There was really only one topic in this chapter I feel like I want to dive into at this moment. Perhaps it is because there was a lot to cover in this chapter, but I felt the one that could benefit me as a teacher most was the information on self-efficacy.
The section about a teacher’s sense of self-efficacy is a frightening subject to me. The fact that my own self-efficacy as a teacher will influence how well my students learn is a bit intimidating. It mainly concerns me because I sometimes doubt my abilities, as I am sure many people have done in the past. However, I think if you go into teaching with the right attitude, you will be able to sustain your self-efficacy level. I think the high level of burn out (50% within five years! Yikes!) is due to new teachers thinking teaching is going to be easy and that they can make a huge difference in every child’s life! It is not realistic to drastically change twenty or so students’ lives in 180 days. It is possible though, to impact the life of just one child a little bit and I think this is what we all need to think about. Also, I figure as long as I acknowledge that people make mistakes (yes, even myself!) and that I can learn from them, then I will be able to maintain a good level of self-efficacy. I think it is okay to be overly optimistic as a teacher; that is what motivates us to continue learning and to continue trying.
I found the section of how to teach towards self-efficacy interesting. Mainly I found interesting that you should share control with your students. I think this is a great way to foster interest in students. With the child I worked with, I found that he responded best if I gave him options. I know this is in a different context than the learning environment, but I found that he was much more willing to do what needed to be done (like coming out of the tree) when I gave him a choice of options. There doesn’t seem to be many choices for kids in school; they have to be there, they have to do the math and the reading work, and they have to be with that particular teacher. I think giving students some choices, as long as they are restricted to the appropriate curriculum, will provide them with more interest and motivation to learn. It will allow them to have a feeling of importance, that what they say does in fact matter and that their teacher does care about their opinions. I am definitely going to keep these guidelines for myself and apply them in my classroom as much as possible.
I feel there is so much I could talk about with regards to this chapter, but I think I will finish with just one last thing. Inquiry learning involves students formulating hypotheses, collecting data, drawing conclusions and finally reflecting on their original problem and the thinking processes needed to solve it. In science class, students learn about these different steps, but I feel all too often that reflection is over looked. I know that reflecting will help students process the information more effectively and I think it is important for this aspect to be emphasized in the classroom. We have read many times in all of our classes (I think all of them, the books are confusing me now) that reflection is important if you want information to be processed and understood by your students effectively. I am going to aim to remember this for my own lesson plans.
After writing these journals and reflecting on all of the information, I am finding that I was missing a lot of this when I was younger and in school. My main goal and hope (right now) is that I can teach my students what my education neglected to teach me.
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