Final Reflection
The Educational Psychology of Adolescence is a rigorous course that has challenged me to consider various psychological theories and premises in relation to my expectations of my students and my teaching techniques. It is interesting how the further I get into my education as a teacher, the more I see connections between my former education and my current career. When I wrote my undergraduate thesis utilizing Erikson’s theories to analyze adolescents in American novels, I never expected I would be revisiting both of these ideas as a teacher. Nor did I expect to actually be applying the Educational Philosophy course I took to students in my classroom. And I did not expect this course to provide the underlying groundwork for the various teaching strategies I have learned and practiced over the past year. Through the study of psychology in relation to education, I now have a more thorough understanding of these strategies and how to effectively use them with the diversity of students I see everyday.
Unfortunately, the benefits of this course have been overshadowed by poor timing. First, this course is condensed into a summer session without being redesigned to compensate for the compressed time. Second, while maintaining this schedule, I have also continued to teach full time. The beginning of this class coincided with the beginning of our new school year. The quantity of work demanded by this class was compounded by the fact that I did not receive my class schedule at work until the second day of schooling, resulting in a delay my planning the first quarter. As a second year teacher, I do not have a large resource of lessons that I can simply implement, but am still creating much from scratch. As a result, I constantly felt torn between my own homework and preparing for my daily classes. It was frustrating for me to constantly feel that I was not giving my full attention to either. Somehow, I still was able to obtain a lot of useful information from this course.
One of the most useful tools in this class was the textbook. Rarely will I rave about a textbook, but I thought this one was very well organized and informative. Given the fast pace of the class and the little amount of class time that was given to discussing the book, I greatly appreciated the accessible style of the book and the practical applications offered in each chapter. Shortly after reading certain chapters, I found myself evaluating my students’ behavior and my own reactions based on various psychological theories, particularly behavioral theory for management and cognitive development for how I convey concepts to my students or set objectives for them. Having this background knowledge allows me to more objectively and systematically reflect on what happens in my classroom. For example, a challenge for me has been getting students to raise their hands in class discussions. After reading the chapter about reinforcement, I controlled my own responses (even when I wanted to acknowledge the only student who said anything but was calling out) and only recognized those who had their hands up. It was really hard and the students thought I was being ridiculous at first, but they soon self-monitored their own behavior as well as that of their classmates. Without having read this book, I would have given up much sooner, rewarding the behavior I did not want. Now, it is still a problem, but with one reminder, there is much less calling out. Another positive side effect is that students seem to be more thoughtful about their answers when they cannot just shout out anything that comes into their heads. The students not calling out make me feel more relaxed and in control of the lesson, resulting in a more positive learning experience for all of us.
I feel that, given the time constraints and the demands of my job, I put forth as much effort and time as I could into this class, but not as much as I would have liked in order to really feel like I did my best. For example, I could not gain approval for time away to observe a middle school, though I think it would have added to my understanding of the theories covered in the course. Also, for many of the quizzes and papers, I did not get to review and read the material as thoroughly as I would have liked. I feel my lesson plans, for which I could dedicate more time since they overlapped with work I had to do to prepare for my classes, received most of my attention. This is probably why my best samples were my lesson plans and my most challenging were my quizzes. Nonetheless, I still am proud of my success across all the assignments of this class.
Though I could not dedicate the time I wanted to this class over the summer, I am confident that I will continue to build upon the seeds planted in this course. I will continue to evaluate and observe my students through the lens of the theories of Erikson, Piaget, Vygotsky and Kohlberg. I will also take into consideration and review the many ways we remember information in order to be sure my lessons provide students with many chances to learn and remember the concepts I am teaching. Gardner’s eight multiple intelligences are elements I will try to address more directly in my future planning. In addition to these classroom applications, I would like to do more student interviews and still hope to observe a middle school at some point as well as more classes at my own school. I am sure I will keep this book as a reference to help me continue to improve my classroom management and my understanding of my students. In summary, this course has provoked me into think about learning and assessing learning in new ways that I hope will positively impact my students.
The portfolio has served as a means for me to review and consolidate what I learned in this course. As I mentioned in my portfolio, reflective exercises help me to internalize, make meaning of, and apply materials studies. Thus, the portfolio allowed me to do this with parts of the class I did not have to reflect upon earlier. It also gave me an appreciation for the amount of material we covered and how directly applicable it is to my classroom. I also like having a record of my work as a student and scholar in a format that is easy to archive and share with others. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to create my portfolio as a website. Finally, it has prepared me to move into thinking about creating my portfolio for the completion of my SSUIP portfolio next semester.