5313 Contribution to Learning

When I first started courses these 8 weeks I was stressed out. I had just started one of my dream jobs (Special Education teacher), and I was already getting behind on my courses. Thankfully, I have great and understanding professors who allowed me extra time to get back on track. I am now in my first year of full time teaching my own class, and I am a semester away from graduating with my masters. My ADL courses this semester allowed me to really think about the environment I am creating for my students and if its significant enough for them to properly learn, grow, and feel confident and comfortable.

5313 was all about learning how to create safe, effective, collaborative environments for my students. With me being a SpEd teacher, I through in safe because with my students having certain disabilities I want to always make sure I have a safe environment for everyone. This course had me reflect and evaluate my ability to be a self-driven and self-directed learner and assess my contributions to learning for my students. Even though I am a teacher, I am also still a learner. This course taught me how to assess the quality of my own work and to be a powerful learner, this is a very important part when planning lessons for my students.

5389 was mostly about CSLE with your team and demonstrating/ modeling them. This course allowed me to focus on the learning that is actually given to me for FREE during professional developments. I found ways to make professional developments more fun and engaging. I found ways to not just have everyone in the same room but instead to give them options and then to reconnect what they learned with other peers. The course taught me that just like students, teachers do not want to sit and be lectured to. Nancy Duarte's message should have spoken volume to all educators who want to succeed during and after PL. By overcoming ineffective communication, the ideas that live in us should be shared with everyone on your team if you know it will benefit the students.

I enjoyed both courses this semester fully. I believe I blogged more for these two courses than I did for any of the other ADL courses. For 5313 I am giving myself a score of 90. I decided to score myself between the 90-100 range because even though I had a rough start with changing jobs and having no internet access, I feel I still came back strong and finished even stronger. With working closely with Dawn and Patrick and everyone in the GroupMe, it allowed me to feel more comfortable about my assignments. I enjoyed all of their feedbacks and feedforwards, us helping each other find resources, and us just ensuring each other that we will be ok and will finish with this degree. I now know I can utilize Fink’s 3-Column table and Wiggins and McTighe’s UbD template to make better lesson plans for my students and dig deeper in their learning.

Duarte, N. (Dec. 10, 2010). Nancy Duarte uncovers common structure of greatest communicators. Retrieved on September 8, 2022, from https://youtu.be/1nYFpuc2Umk

3-Coulmn Table

UbD Template