Week 2 Read&Reflect

For Marzano’s Teacher Scales for Reflection, I found myself rated exactly where I would expect to be, 2-3 developing and applying these strategies, yet recognizing that I need to make changes as needed to continue growing with my students. The whole time I kept thinking how cool this would be to take every few years before, during and at the end of your teaching career- with complete and total honesty, something you would only see. This would be a great way to see how you’ve grown and maybe what areas you still need to be working on or are avoiding. I was a bit overwhelmed by the Marzano chapter and reflection, because it immediately made me think, “Oh, how could I have let this lax, I need to work on this.” But I also felt overwhelmed by the fact that as I’m reading I was thinking… Only 50 minutes a week, how in the world can we cram all of this in…? Wait we can but it means being so amazingly prepared for everything, and several years of a foundation of students brought up in my manner of teaching that know the practices and how we run it.   And not constantly changing my mind about every little thing~ if it’s hard for me to keep up, it’s hard for them to keep up.
The theme that kept emerging to me when I look back between my qualities and reflection scales was my thought process when rating myself. I frequently had the thought of, well sometimes we do this, and then some days this seems less important or less of a focus. I feel like when I really look back on my teaching, it’s a bit of a roller coaster for me and my students. I am always dead on and consistent when it comes to my love for my students and teaching, and classroom management. But when I look at assessment, or other areas, I think I’m probably doing it always, but I’m not always present in my mind to be specifically thinking about each and every one of these things… Hopefully I’m not the only one who feels this day. My mental focus of what I am trying to do better can fluctuate daily, and for simple reasons, like last week’s assignment, or the staff meeting this morning, or something another teacher said yesterday. Even though I feel a bit all of the place with these things I always find that I come back and hit on them multiple times, almost as a refresher.
As for objectivism- well part of me feels like a lot of my childhood education was spent memorizing and listening and then regurgitation of what I learned and then forgetting it. To an extent we need to be able to memorize certain things and I do ask this of my students, but I try to find more ways for them to explore and learn these important things through experimentation in the art room. I feel that if I can make it fun and they can make these discoveries as learners they will hang on to that information longer.