After going through the Roles section (videos, vignettes, questions, etc.) and learning about the role of the AT, what might you do differently as a teacher candidate? Why?
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After learning more about the roles of the AT, I discovered that being with an AT is like working on a collaborative team where I receive a mentor who is able to guide me and play a critical role in my growth as a teacher candidate. Being with an AT is a chance to see experts at work and be able to ask questions. They are there to help and to make my journey to becoming a teacher a success. As a teacher candidate, I think I will take more opportunities to ask questions, get the AT’s perspective on situations and seek them out for help. The AT wants me in the classroom because they want to help me grow and develop. I need to make sure that they play a big role in my development as an educator. I also want to make sure that I am always open for constructive feedback and advice that the AT can give to me. They are there to be my mentor and the only way they can do that is if I am open to what they have to say.
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After going through the Planning section, what is one thing that you think you should NOT do, ask, or say to an AT when planning learning opportunities for students. Why?
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One thing that I should not do would be to ask the AT in the classroom to give me the resources and lesson plan that they want me to teach. It is important for my own learning process that I create my own detailed lesson plans as outlined by the faculty. It is my duty to create learning experiences and I should not be placing that responsibility on my AT. Another thing that I should not do is jump right into all of the responsibilities and roles of the classroom. It is important that I have the chance to observe the classroom and the students without being responsible for learning experiences. It would hinder my own learning if I were to take on too many classroom responsibilities too early.
After going through the Feedback section, how might YOU use this section (or parts of this section) in your field experience? Why?
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Constructive feedback that is specific and daily is so important during my field experience. I am there to learn and to improve as an educator and to fully do this I need to receive comments on how my lesson planning is successful and where it could use some work. I think that the best part of this section was descriptions of different kinds of feedback (collaborative, constructive etc…) and how they are used. I also enjoyed the various suggestions to giving feedback for teacher candidates such as comments on the lesson plan, open discussions, binders or notes. I thought that these sections were important because it showed the many forms that feedback could take and what I should be looking for from my AT. I need to make sure that I am getting constrain feedback and that I know what good feedback looks like.
Research on FELConline found that ATs did not visit the P-T section as much as the other sections, however, they insisted that the section remain on the learning tool.
How might you explain this finding?
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The majority of the information on the website is based in practical experience and things that can be found directly in the learning environment. In a section such as P-T which is mostly based in theory, teachers may not see the need to utilize the information within it. I think that this could be due to a several reasons. One could be that ATs feel as though they already are informed and up to date on theory from the courses and learning that are taking place at the Faculty. Another could be that they do not feel as though that knowledge is as important as knowing how to lesson plan or manage the classroom. Overall, theory is the basis to all teacher practice, so it is important that it remains part of the learning expected of teacher candidates.
What page(s)/slide(s) of the P-T section will be most helpful to you as a beginning teacher? Why?
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One slide that really stuck out to me was the practices slide since it gave a list of resources that could be used for teaching and learning strategies in the classroom. I thought that it was something that could be very useful for new teachers or teacher candidates first starting out in the field. Although I had a particular liking for this one slide, I believe that every single slide in the P-T section was helpful and relevant to beginning teachers. Every slide provided lists of valuable resources that beginning teachers could access and store for later use. Not only this but every slide was designed to give teachers tools to better themselves and to help make them more informed professionals. It is important as professionals that we continue to develop and keep up with research in the field. The P-T section is probably the most important section and has the most to offer beginning teachers.