Final Exam

B.

My personal vision is centered around preparing students for what the 21st century demands. This includes: technological skills, word processing skills, colloboration, higher level thinking skills, and the willingness to reflect on their thinking, actions, and efforts to be the best person they can be. As an educator, I view powerful teaching being one that can take the curriculum given and design in it a way in which students are responsible for the construction of their own knowledge. According to Bizar et al. (2001) students must be taught to create knowledge, it is not something they learn by restating other's ideas. It is a learning process that is often challenging, but produces authentic results in students' learning for self.

One action I will implement in CP 2 is to become apart of my school's culture. I will do this by getting more involved in students lives by asking students question and giving them time to talk about what they did over the weekend. I will also share my interests and weekend activities. Seeing as though my class size is small, it will be extremely important that I develop relationships with my students on a much deeper level. I will also make it appoint to get involved in school activities such as, dances, performances, volunteer at events and so forth so that I am able to meet parents, teachers, adminstrators and learn more about the school's culture through through the eyes of the faculty in addition to observation.



I plan on developing a risk taking mentality. I plan on using PE journals even if my colleagues disagree. I plan on teaching students with special needs through hands-on and cooperative learning activities that produce knowledge, not meaningless work that have no context or connection to standards or student's lives. Although to many this may not display risk, but from what I have seen in schools, students are not writing in PE and students with special needs are not learning in small groups in which every student has a role and makes a meaninful contribution. Students are not being challenged and are held to low expectations that are never raised.

An action I will implement later in my career will be to co-teach with colleagues. I am interested in teaching PE in connection with other disciplines (health, math, and/or science). This will not only help me develop greater content knowledge and expertise in my area, but it will help those students that may struggle in one of those areas develop mastery over concepts. I understand the value of collaboration and more importantly, I want students to see how colloboration works.

In sum, my position toward transforming public education is to first understand where my students fall in the order of hierarchy and their particular needs. My purpose for becoming an educator is to teach students what they haven't learned about themselves yet. Why? Because I know how valuable a role model is in adolescents lives particluarly if they can relate to students and their community. Thus, I will begin by taking risk that I feel are appropriate, positive and small in nature. I will also make it appoint to become part of the school's culture through extracurricular activities and designating personal time in getting to know students. Last, I will work to collaborate with colleagues on assessments, content, ITU's and the like so that I can continue working and reflecting on teacher effectiveness. In the end, I want students to leave school prepared and with as many options as possible to do great things.