Jasmine Vargas

Dr. Rogers

INDC 4360

May 5th, 2021

Reflection Essay: Strengths and Improvements

Whenever it comes to teaching in general, one of my strengths that can

definitely work in my favor for education is that I am extremely organized, and I

love to be super structured. I believe this is very important as an educator because

you are running a classroom of 20-30 students every week; therefore, organization

is very important for a smooth classroom. Another one of my strengths is that I am

extremely detailed oriented, and I pay attention to every single detail in everything

that I have to do. This is also a very important attribute in being a teacher because

you have to be aware of any of your students’ sudden personality changes or in any

way that they might be acting different. However, some of the areas that I need

improvement on is definitely more experience and being more confident when I

am teaching. At times I let my nervousness get to me and I tend to completely shut

down and not fully develop my lessons. I understand that losing this fear takes time

for practice and being a teacher, but my goal is to well-prepare myself for my

lessons and rehearse what I want to teach days before to feel more confident

whenever I am in front of my students.

 Whenever it comes to classroom management, one of my strengths is that I

am already a very structured person, so this comes very natural to me. I am also

very good at coming up with ways to manage your classroom better such as lots of

attention gatherer chants. However, one of my improvements in regard to

classroom management is that I can be too strict. Since I am such an order

structure person, I expect everyone to be the same, but that is not how I want to run

my classroom. Of course, I would not want all of my 15 students running around

my classroom, but I also would not want for them to be strapped in their seats all

day long. As a person pursuing to be an early education educator, I must

understand the balance between being structured and being too strict.

Lastly, whenever it comes to math instruction, one of my strengths is that I

am very patient. This is huge for math instruction because you must be patient for

those students that need more guidance in understanding a concept. I have had to

tutor a couple of students that would not understand a concept right away and I

would have to spend extra time with them. On the other hand, one of my area of

improvements in regard to math instruction is that I am too quick at giving my

students the answer. At times, I am just so eager for them to understand the

concept that I do not let them really work with the information. At times they do

get the right answers, but I lack in helping them search for more and ask them for

understanding and how they got to that answer.