Dave Brown

Education 302-303
Professor Leo/Keeley
Self-Reflection
This Fall, I embarked on the next step of my education career. Looking back at my
teacher-aiding experience at East Grand Rapids High School, I have learned so much, and I have
seen much success and some opportunities. Overall, I have mostly gained a better understanding
of what teaching will be like and have a better idea of how I want to run my classroom. In this
reflection, though, I will be evaluating my whole unit.
When constructing this unit, I put a lot of thought into what it should look like so that the
students would understand the material, and that it would reflect a similar classroom that Ms.
Edison was ran. I talked about my decision making in my faith-based teaching statement, and I
did very well balancing my perspective with Ms. Edisons classroom. I continued her reverseclassroom style of teaching, and made all the videos for the chapter. Despite being very nervous
when making the first two videos, they turned out very professional, and I felt very comfortable
by the end. Most of the unit went that way, actually. I put a lot more effort into the first and
second lesson, but felt more comfortable by the last two. The first lesson gave me confidence in
my abilities to make a lesson, while the second humbled me to be aware of overcomplicating
thing, since the class failed to understand the activity with the slips. By then, I found a balance,
where I could create lessons that would engage the students, but still be simple to execute.
Unfortunately, my schedule got very busy, and I had to pass the planning for the last section,
section 3.6 sequences, onto Ms. Edison. I still led the lesson, and felt very comfortable doing
so. After those early road-bumps, I feel confident in planning and implementing for classes.

While I saw improvements and opportunities on my end, it seems like the students may
have experienced a different story. Ms. Edison runs a great class for her students, and they do
very well. When looking at the grades that these students were getting, I can remember that the
mean was just under 90% in the class. At parent-teacher conferences, the parents were telling her
that their kids enjoyed her class more than previous math classes. So far in my unit, since the
students hold on to their worksheets, I have only graded the 3.1-3.3 quiz. They are about to take
the 3.4-3.6 quiz, and will take the chapter test after Thanksgiving Break so I only have the
records of online assignments and in-class observations. From these assessments, I can see that at
least 95% of the class would be passing, but the mean would be below the success that Ms.
Edison was getting from her class. Although this system of standard assessing is made to track
understanding, the depth of student understanding cannot be assessed that easily. Oakes and
Lipton, in Teaching to Change the World, emphasize the development of our schools
standardized assessing, and how much it tracks the work of our students, but that does not
capture the whole picture (Oakes/Lipton). Woolfork thoroughly explains another valuable piece
of students education in Educational Psychology, and raises the importance of developing
student understanding (Woolfork). What highly matters to students is their depths of knowledge,
and I could assess that during our discussions during recaps/reviews. During these, I worked hard
to frame the examples to the students understanding, and noticed the depth of knowledge from
students who engaged well. From observation, I would determine that a handful of 15-20 of the
25 students fit this latter description. Also, when I talked to students, they enjoyed having me
teach in their class. So, the unit plan was not as effective as Ms. Edison has proved she can
achieve with the class, but was still effective for most of the students.

Overall, this unit has helped me better envision what I want from my classroom, and how
to manage it. Teaching under Ms. Edison at East Grand Rapids High School has given me a
teaching experience that will equip me well. I got to model my teaching within a well-working
classroom, and implement it under a successful teacher. The students were very patient, and
helped me find out how I teach best in Ms. Edisons class. If I were teaching at East Grand
Rapids High School, I might change my emphasis to deep understanding of why and what the
students are doing, because I do not believe grades are as important as our school system
stresses. Knowing that I have a heavy interest in social justice, I highly doubt that I will be
teaching at a school like East Grand Rapids, with students like I had. The reverse classroom
worked very well for Ms. Edisons students, but East Grand Rapids has the resources to do that. I
imagine that wherever and whoever I teach, I will implement a student oriented classroom, in
which the way I teach depends on how my students learn/would learn best. This style of
education was introduced to me in Education 101, and requires being very relational. I can see
how, although Ms. Edison always teaches with the reverse classroom, it just so happens that her
classroom fits her students learning styles extremely well. I value authenticity and depth, and I
really learned how teaching for this can balance with academic success and specific teaching
strategies that can embody my vision.