Courtney Owen

12/17/15
EDUC 611

Due:
Dr. Peck
Education 611 Reflection

What do you know now that you didnt know at the beginning of the
course?
Upon reflection, I can honestly say that I am walking away from this class
with the most practical knowledge, strategies, and activities that I can apply to any
classroom setting, out of all my classes since. While this may seem like an over the
top praise, it is true when I look at every class I attended. Each class started off with
an activity to engage the students and activate prior knowledge- a type of activity
and strategy that most teachers either should or already do implement in their
classroom every day or before each lesson. Each activity was also fun and could
then be taken the next day and applied in the classroom to any grade level, with
some modifications.
Our class focused on conversations in group work, which is often the dread of
every student (Classic joke: Let my group members lower my casket into the
ground, so they can let me down one last time.) I found every conversation I had
with a group member beneficial. The beauty of our grad classes is that we are
surrounded by different teachers who are in the classroom everyday- and I didnt
realize how much I could learn from them and their experiences until we were
forced to communicate and apply our experiences to the topics and strategies at
hand, which led to deeper learning and understanding of how we can use these
materials in different ways.
In some of the first classes, you introduced us to different books you
recommended for our classes and for read-alouds. I can say that I now have a better
understanding of how to choose appropriate books for read alouds and how to
prepare for those experiences to help my students understand the text and learn
from the lesson.
What did you learn from the readings, activities, and projects in this class
to improve your knowledge of using different methods and materials for
literacy instruction?
I have to say that the readings we had in this class are ones that I will
actually use in my classroom. Sometimes you have education classes where you
read just textbooks. I dont plan on using that textbook again. What I plan on using
is a book that helps me with classroom management (CAF) or teaches me a new
way to speak to and encourage my students (WTW). I appreciate the readings we
had for this class, because instead of renting them and returning them, I went out of
my way to purchase them. I plan on using Daily 5 in my classroom one day, and
when I do, I want CAF to be there leading me into an organized, more practical
management of my class, and a reminder of how to phrase certain things to
empower my students.
As I mentioned before, I loved the activities. I am an activities kind of girl. If I
didnt mention it before, I wrote my final 20 page research paper for Dr. Barbers

class on Sensory Circuitsa sensory integrated intervention/program that uses a

series of activating, organizing, and calming activities to get children with high/low
energy ready for the daythis semester and felt that each activity we participated
in in class or learned about I could apply to even my college aged students/RAs.
They made us pay attention to the teacher and utilize our working memory
(Captains on Deck/Howdy Sailor). They provided a new context for us and students
to interpret concepts like comprehension (Draw picture on your back) or
communication (Telephone/Act it Out). We then took those ideas and incorporated
them into our theory and practice projects, including an activity at the beginning of
every project to activate our classs prior knowledge on comprehension, accuracy,
fluency, or vocabulary.
Perfect segue: projects. The projects I took from most, especially the theory
and practice projects. After each group presentation I had a 90% better
understanding of how to use different strategies for each area, and walked away
with anywhere between 10 and 20 new strategies that I knew how to modify and
apply to my classroom of choice. I even created a new binder/folder to put all of the
strategies in, because I know they are valuable interventions that I will need in the
future and will regret throwing away or misplacing.
How will your learning help you as a reflective professional, constructivist
educator, and a teacher scholar/researcher?
As a reflective professional the graduate programs hope to help us link
theory to practice and to design and implement action research on local schools
or other educational settings. I believe that through this class I was able to
accomplish both. In our theory and practice projects we truly took theories we read
in our texts and made them into practical strategies that any teacher could utilize.
Same with our coaching guides- we took the theories in Words Their Way and
applied it to an actual lesson that we taught to a fellow classmate.
Our instructional inquiries of a school also allowed us to research and analyze
the literacy curriculum in our local schools and communities, fulfilling the reflective
professional expectations as well and the constructivist educator: the goals being to
connect home, school, and community in the practice of education, to
understand the theoretical basis of and implement multicultural educational
practices that respect and welcome diversity, and to develop leadership skills to
advocate for children. I believe I was able to learn how to appropriately incorporate
and welcome diversity through our read-alouds, and seeing how other teachers
chose books and lessons to implement multicultural understanding as well as
advocate for the rights of children through meaningful lessons.
The graduate school also sets goals for us to be a teacher scholar/researcher,
in which were expected to link content, curriculum development, assessment, and
pedagogy, based on the latest developments in the field and to interpret and
evaluate educational research. Besides the theory and practice project, which
absolutely utilized those skills, we also implemented these goals in our Top Ten
Beliefs of Coaching, when we researched our own beliefs and backed it up with
research-based evidence, and with the various videos we found on coaching to help
us understand what the most recent and practical coaching strategies are available
to us.

What suggestions do you offer to me to refine and improve the course?

I would recommend some organization and clarification on myCourses, the
syllabus, and rubrics. For most assignments, we would ask you directly in class for
the requirements, which did not always reflect the expectations in the syllabus. You
mentioned that you had recently updated the syllabus so this is understandable.
But also make sure that on myCourses there is only one rubric for each assignment
and that it reflects the syllabus. Unfortunately there were times where there was
either multiple or no rubrics on the assignment and made adhering to the
expectations of that assignment difficult and confusing.
Give yourself a grade for the course and substantiate why youve earned
this.
B+
I would like to give myself a B+. I believe that this grade reflects my efforts
and assignments in the course. While I was very enthusiastic for every class, and
showed it, I believe sometimes my overzealousness bordered and crossed the line
of professionalism within the class. I do believe that I deserved at least an A- in
participation, because in every class I made the effort to take initiative to advance
our discussions and activities with opinions and questions. I attended every class
with the exception of the one I left early due to illness. I will admit I did not put
100% effort into every one of my assignments. But for all of the other assignments
that I did put effort into, I put 110% into them, believing that I was reflecting on
myself as a learner while advancing the knowledge of my fellow teachers.
I really enjoyed this class and took more than I expected from it. I truly
appreciate all of the ideas you have provided us and for requiring this reflection: it
really made me think back upon everything weve accomplished and what tools and
materials I will walk away with to create enthusiastic and successful learners in my
future classroom.
Thank you,
Courtney