Final Reflection

                                              

We made it to the end of the semester and that means our time with Dr. Smirnova has also come to an end...for now (I will be meeting her again in Social Studies Methods). ED 5534, Research Methods in Teaching Science and Technology in Childhood Education is done, but the content and tools I have learned will last a lifetime!

Where do I even begin? The beginning of the semester was definitely a whirlwind experience for me and Group 1, as we had to teach our two lessons on the third week of class! From this teaching experience, I learned a lot about myself as a future educator and as a current student. It is strange to be both and try to remember what I am learning now will be incorporated for years to come. When we first completed our lesson I felt disappointed, but quickly realized that everything I do is a learning experience. It was great to be able to see how other teacher candidates teach and pick up ideas from their ways.

When fieldwork was done, we moved into learning about different content areas of Science. During these next weeks, we learned how to use a number of different online tools to make our future lessons more tech savvy! Before I started this class, I thought that I was a tech savvy person, boy was I mistaken! I had no clue how many free resources there are available and how many of them will be great assests in the classroom. Some of my favorite tools include, Glogster and TikiToki. Both of these are honestly pretty easy to use, but create the "Wow!" factor, which will be great to have in the classroom.

I must say that this class pushed me past my comfort zone, but I am glad that I took that next step and honed my teaching skills even more. There is just so much to learn and it's hard to believe that this is only one of the methods classes I have to take! If I am to take away two things from this course, it is to make sure that I always remain up to date with technology- as it is the way of our future and if I don't practice it, who will teach our students all of the tools out there?! Most importantly, I will remember "Hands-On, Minds-On" learning. Worksheets are not the answer to teaching, although so many teachers think they are. After this class, I will be very hesitant to use worksheets in the future. :)