Johana Barajas

SED 496

Career Goals: Five years

In the next five years my goal is to be working for the students of the Phoenix Union High

School District. I would like to go into their history department and work there for the following

years. As I work along these students and coworkers I would also like to go back for my Masters

in School Administration. However I probably would wait about five years to do so because I

would really like to spend some time in the classroom and evolving as a teacher first and once I

feel ready I would like to take a shot at the Administration side of education.

Resume

Throughout my education I have experienced a couple of internships that have helped me

develop what my future in the classroom will be like. I started in high school with my Education

Profession CTE class (Career Technical Education). Before I wanted to become a teacher I

wanted to be a Psychologist and the closest CTE class to that was the Education class. Therefore

my first OJT (On the Job Training) or internship was in a health class in my very own high

school. This placement helped me change my career and chose teaching. I enjoyed when I would

go to observe and especially when I had my first lesson plan and I received great feedback from

my teachers and the students in the class.

Phoenix College

Metro Tech High School: When I continued my education at PC I was able to participate in more

internships. One of my most notable ones was my only U.S. History classroom placements I

have had. This placement was more of an observation. I helped the teacher with some grading
but most importantly my lead teacher gave me enormous amounts of advice. Such as what

districts I should look into, or teaching strategies. While I was observing I saw that his teaching

style was similar to how I would like to hold my class someday.

Arizona State University

Rhodes Middle School: This placement was more of an observation as well since I was placed in

a science classroom. Even Though the placement was nowhere near related to my desired

content I still appreciate the chance it gave me to experience new styles of teaching. I learned

how the teachers worked in their teams to help the groups of students they were assigned

Alhambra High School: This placement was with a teacher that specified in Economics but had a

History course in the last period. This is when I started getting more involved in my internships.

I was interacting more with the students and helping them out. My lead teacher was encouraging

me to take on a lesson. I started to work on it and was going to present it after spring break. Then

Covid hit. Therefore I was not able to execute the lesson.

Moon Mountain: This was my most recent placement and definitely one of my favorites. Both

the students and my lead teacher were amazing. I was able to teach multiple lessons both online

and the in-person students. I started off with co teaching with my mentor teacher and when I felt

more comfortable I taught one class. Then I was taking on all four of her classes and coming up

with independent work activities the students could do. I taught about Ancient Greece and Rome,

Medieval Times, when it came to helping with their writings we started going over Sparta vs

Athens. Throughout the weeks and different lessons or simple activities I would do with the

students, my teaching mentor would always be writing down feedback on what I was doing well

and how I could improve. I would take her feedback and implement it and try to get better by the
next time I taught a lesson or explained an assignment to the students. Great experience overall

definitely learned plenty that can help me prepare for my student teaching next semester.

Skill Areas

Being a teacher includes a variety of skills one has to obtain. Not only because they are in charge

of teaching students but also because of their coworkers. Co-teaching or interdisciplinary lessons

are important in secondary education therefore a teacher must have good teamworking skills.

That is a skill that I have. The more ideas the better. When two teachers work together they

enhance the richness of their students' learning. For example the following link will be on a

interdisciplinary lessons my English teacher coworker (partner) and I worked very closely to

provide and engaging and well informed lesson from both contents (History & English)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q1YdfbZtEUYfzQXt09MTQ2UZAR3Q_3IUrgW2azAj9j

E/edit?usp=sharing

Another skill that I possess and is useful for the education field is to review the lesson or any

assignments. I learned this best through my most previous internship. After the first period of

teaching the lesson we as teachers can get a feel of what worked or what may need to be

modified. We then have to do said modifications for the next period and see if that has better

results. As my mentor teacher mentioned, it is a very important part of teaching because there is

always room for improvement. The first period may get the test drive of the lesson but in the last

period a teacher that has made proper modifications or any improvement will give the best lesson

of the day. This reminded me of an assignment I worked on in this same previous placement.

This assignment needed modifications and with the help of my mentor teacher was able to
change some of the instructions and wording by the last periods that helped me present it better.

The following is an unedited assignment, which I used for the first period.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1RRTF8GDuRwWglvvKrknTNmpTOBG0H3Y_APZq-

NK30RQ/edit?usp=sharing

One other thing that teachers should be skilled in is exploring different ways of teaching. This is

specifically to History teachers. One of the many sources a history teacher has to present the

content are films and videos. We need to be able to measure what is a proper time length for the

videos we show. Also what kind of information will be presented in said time. As a history

teacher videos can bring the lesson to a visual presentation and have the students perceive the

content through a different perspective. This is more true if the video/film being shown is some

type of documentation. The following is a film guide assignment I did that identifies a few video

sources I would use in my history class.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZBbJQhm1mN_ER41DWntrNpfv_HhG6iq3QtkWUzy_M

nM/edit?usp=sharing