MDD 6: REFLECTION AND SELF – EVALUATION

Amanda Carpo Sweet

MDD Standard

• The teacher candidate identifies the main things learned in this practicum and ways in which
this learning has informed their professional development needs, reflecting on the meaning,
values, and purposes that will orient his or her professional life.

4.1 Reflect on the main things you have learned about teaching and how these relate to your
understanding of the profession and the values that guide your work.

Firstly, I would like to point out that, due to the pandemic, we had to teach trough internet
apps such as zoom. Teaching in long distance is more difficult than teaching at school,
consequently, as teachers we had to plan lessons putting special importance to increasing
student’s motivation in order to keep his/her attention. This fact gave me the opportunity to
search and get to know new tools that can be used to teach in any situation, such as games
and fun activities. The mentioned fact reminds me that teaching is about innovating and
searching for new knowledge continually.

Secondly, this semester I concentrated more on the student’s feelings and impressions
towards the lesson and the context. Continuing learning during a pandemic might be
complicated for some people, especially when they have to stay home, being exposed
sometimes to family problems or the fact of having to share space with all the family group. I
tried to be informed about the feeling of my student while planning and during the lessons,
sometimes he did not have the same energy for working so I helped him or I changed the
activity at the moment with the aim of lowering the stress. All of this reminds me of the
importance of teachers, and that we can help our learners not only to learn a foreign language,
but also we can help them to get distracted from their problems and if possible we can help
them to get a solution. Due to the importance of taking care of our mental health, I dedicated
one lesson for learning tips for improving the student’s humor.

Lastly, I learned to value the small improvements of the learner and the importance of giving
positive feedback. This made me realize how much can a student learn when you congratulate
him/her for his/her work. My student was very shy, but at the end of the unit he was actively
participating of the lessons and he was making his best effort to speak in English. I feel very
grateful for his disposition to learn and this reminds me that as teachers we should not only
point out the mistakes, we need to pay attentions to the improvements and the positive
things.

4.2 Describe one or two areas of professional growth (e.g. instructional strategies, content
knowledge).

I would say that I improved in strategies for personalizing learning and differentiating
instruction. Having just one student gave me the opportunity to get to know his needs and
abilities, therefore I planned the Unit considering that information.
References and Credits: If you referred to other person’s ideas or material in your narrative,
you should reference these in a separate section at the end of your narrative under References
and Credits.