MIller 1

Taylor Miller

EDO 100-102

Richard Barner

Lesson 1 Participation Assignment

I am both voraciously excited and very nervous to commit to implementing all of these

lessons to my teaching. I know that I will not become a master teacher overnight and I pray that

I can take the difficult days with grace. This leads me to reflect on the video in lesson one

presented by the Supervising Practitioner. In the short video, the Supervising Practitioner

stated that an ideal Student Teacher possesses the ability, on a daily basis, to adapt, improvise,

and overcome. In my short tenure as a teacher in the state of Arizona, I can say with

confidence that these qualities are not only potentially desirable in a teacher, but absolutely

necessary. There are days when I may not be feeling my best and I need to adapt to what I

can and cannot do and translate that to fill the capacity of the students. On the other hand,

there may be an unforeseen circumstance such as a fire drill, leaving me with only 15 dreadfully

long minutes to fit an entire lesson in and I must adapt to engage and educate in that short

period of time. In my current role as an eighth grade science teacher, I feel like I am really

perfecting the skill of improvising. I have the same lesson for three different class periods

throughout the day. I find that I start with a solid lesson plan that has never been enacted

before. I know that by the last period, I will be comfortable with what works and what does not

work in the lesson, but during the first period I must be cunning at improvising and feigning

confidence that the later periods certainly experience. But improvising is not limited to my

personal experience. I hope that during my career I am creative and clever enough to improvise
in the event that something I had hoped would be a great lesson, turns out to not be engaging

the students. If this becomes

Miller 2

apparent within the first 15 minutes of class, I have 45 minutes to either disengage students, or

improvise something that can relate to the students. This idea of improvisation in education is

incredibly valuable to the effective teacher. An effective teacher who can improvise will never

waste their students’ time. By meeting my students where they are every day, I hope to develop

a relationship of mutual respect and understanding that I can successfully improvise if needed.

This brings me to the last, and perhaps most important quality for the longevity of effective

teachers - to overcome. There are quite a few obstacles that teachers have to overcome to

graduate to become master teachers. The most common obstacles are communication with

parents and communication with administration. Both groups of individuals can be difficult to

speak to or they can oftentimes be judgmental. Teachers need to be sensitive enough to reach

students but also strong enough to excel at navigating the communication with parents and

administrators. I strive to be a teacher that promotes engagement of parents and administrators

so that both groups are consistently made aware of my policies, routines, and expectations.

This strategy echoes what the educator Harry Wong suggested in his video, “Discipline and

Procedures: The Effective Teacher.” Finally, I would like to address my plans to always be

open and ask questions and to never fear a “stupid question.” Asking questions is pivotal in

order for a teacher to be effectively working in association with the school site’s rules and

regulations. I look forward to setting an example everyday not just for my students, but also for

my fellow teachers to be a professional constantly striving to achieve professional standards in

all that I do or say.