Blog Post #1 - Personal Learning Goals

Blog Post #1 - September 8, 2020

Personal Learning Goals:

1) Planning for learning - P6 - Develops varied activities and assignments that are relevant, clearly aligned with learning goals, require deep thinking and support student engagement, collaboration, and choice (TQS 3a)

My goal is to create an exciting classroom environment that never gets stale to the students. Keeping things fresh and exciting will help promote student engagement which in turn leads to much richer learning experiences. Also incorporating student choice into the assignments will encourage deeper thinking because the students care more when they are included.

2) Facilitating learning - F1 - Uses a variety of teaching strategies to engage learners in rich learning experiences (TQS 3b)

My plan is to develop, practice, and adjust different teaching strategies that can be effectively utilized to teach different students who possess different types of intelligences.

3) Assessment - A2 - Creates assessment tools that align with outcomes (TQS 3c)

My goal is to further my understanding in regards to assessing students so that my techniques will be encouraging and motivating to students, yet will also always provide the constructive guidance to improve on their abilities.

4) Inclusive environment - IE2 - Plans a classroom environment that is physically, socially, culturally and psychologically secure (TQS 2c, 4a, 4c, 4d, 4g, 5b)

Creating relationships with every student will enable myself to understand the physical, social, cultural, and psychological differences among my students, and create an environment that will be inclusive for everyone. I will ask the students themselves for ideas about how we can create an environment that will be safe, engaging, fun, and inclusive, but will also provide the ability to focus.

5) Professional responsibilities - PR4 - Engages with colleagues in professional learning (TQS 2a)

My goal is to utilize the best resource I have available to me: my mentor teacher. I will come prepared each day with questions that will improve my teaching abilities. I will also be openminded and flexible, because I am entering their classroom and I want to respect the rules and responsibilities they have already established.

My previous experience with educational technology is relatively minimal.  I feel like I have a general understanding and can troubleshoot most issues associated with technology, but I also have experienced frustration in the past.  Uncooperating technology can be a thorn in the side of any teacher, so having the ability to be flexible and pivot during a lesson when these issues arise is a valuable skill to learn and possess.

The burning question I have in regards to technology is what should I expect to encounter in the next five years.  For example, Ontario schoolboards have officially added coding into the elementary curriculum.  Will we need to learn how to be basic coder soon too?  

This question is important to me because I always like to be prepared going into something new.  If the answer is yes, and I do need to possess some basic understanding of coding, I would like to enroll in a 101 coding course so I could provide the answers to the questions my students have.