Nicole Loraas

494: Portfolio
18 March 2015
Midterm Reflection of Student Teaching
I am now halfway through my student teaching experience and have
accomplished so much more than I would have thought possible. I have come a long
way in my student teaching experience and have progressed and grown greatly as
an educator. My student teaching experience has given me the opportunity to selfassess and to be observed and evaluated as an educator. These assessments have
allowed me to view my strengths as well as my weaknesses in the classroom. My
university supervisor and my cooperating teacher have also provided me with
invaluable critiques and insight in which to better myself as an educator. With the
aid of my supervisor, cooperating teacher, and my self-assessments I was able to
evaluate my performance as a teacher and my progress towards my personal goals.
My top strengths include my self-initiative, maintaining student engagement,
and my expectations of the students. I believe my self-initiative is one of my most
important qualities as a teacher because it demonstrates that I am always looking
for new and improved resources to better my lessons and myself as an educator. I
consistently look for technology and hands-on activities to implement into lessons in
order to enhance students knowledge and to differentiate to a variety of learning
styles. I am also frequently asking fellow teachers for ways I can improve my
teaching strategies and instruction in order to make myself a more effective
educator. My ability to maintain student engagement is also an important strength
of mine. I actively work to implement hands-on activities and technology into my
lessons in order to mix- up whole group instruction and capture student attention.

Also, by integrating hands-on activities and technology into lessons I am able to

better relate the course material to the students to encourage their participation
and understanding of the content. My ability to create and hold students to high
expectations is a strength of mine because it prevents behavior conflicts and allows
for longer instruction and learning time. I came into my classroom with high
expectations of my students and held all students equally responsible for their
learning and behavior. The students quickly acknowledged me as their teacher and
readily responded to my classroom management and instructional style. My ability
to create and hold students to high expectations reduced negative behaviors, allows
for quick transitions between activities, holds students accountable for their
learning, and creates a positive learning environment. I have grown immensely as
an educator and have developed many strengths and positive qualities in the
classroom. However, I still have many areas in which I can continue to grow and
improve as an educator.
In order to become a more effective educator I am consistently searching for
ways in which I can improve my performance. I believe that I can improve myself by
creating learning situations that permit students to think critically about the course
content, by ensuring students understand and work through the lesson, and by
finding and integrating more strategies that redirect negative behaviors efficiently. I
believe I can improve myself as a teacher by finding activities in which students
think more critically about the lesson content. When students are permitted to think
critically about their learning they can create connections between the content and
themselves, and the new content and previous content. Also, by thinking critically
about the content students will learn the how and the why of what theyre learning
and will be able to better understand and retain the information. Secondly, I can

improve my teaching effectiveness by ensuring all students understand the lesson

content during whole group instruction. Often times I find myself powering
through the lessons to ensure I achieve all the lesson objectives in the allotted time.
I realized that it is ok to not finish all the lesson objectives and that it is important to
take the time to ensure students clearly understand the lesson content and to
expand on a difficult subject and add in extra activities to help student grasp a
better understanding. I can also improve myself as an educator by integrating new
strategies that redirect negative behaviors efficiently. I have learned that it is more
efficient, and creates a better learning environment, to redirect student behavior
instead of punish, lecture, or ignore it. It is important to efficiently redirect negative
behaviors during instruction so that little or no time is taken away from learning
time and to ensure that every student is participating. By discovering new
strategies I am able to fill up my tool box and have a wide variety of strategies to
accommodate to different students and situations. I believe that by working on
these areas I can improve my performance as an educator immensely and ensure a
better learning environment for the students.
I will ensure that I work towards my areas of improvement by creating an
action plan. I will have my students think critically about their work by asking them
how they found an answer and why they believe that answer is correct. When
students take turns answering questions or problem solving during instruction I will
ask how or why to ensure they think about how they found their answer. I will
also prompt students to create connections between the current lesson and
previous lessons to compare and contrast lesson content, how problems are solved,
or patterns that may occur. I could also model by thinking aloud how to solve
problems or create connections, and how to create connections that are relevant to

or may effect real life situations. I will also improve my teaching by ensuring
students understand lesson content before moving on to a new activity or subject. I
will ensure student understanding by consistently checking for understanding by
asking for verbal responses, thumbs-up, or mini activities. Theses checks will allow
me to assess if students are understanding the content and whether or not I need to
continue instruction. I will also integrate small hands-on activities that will allow me
to view and assess individual students working with the content while building upon
their knowledge of the lesson as well. Lastly, I will improve my teaching abilities by
learning and integrating new behavior redirection strategies. I will actively search
for new strategies by conversing with my cooperating teacher, my supervisor, and
other teachers within my school. By discussing which strategies they have used and
which work for different situations and behaviors I will learn and add a variety of
strategies to my tool box. By using these strategies myself I will be able to
familiarize myself with them and learn which work best for me and for the students.
My midterm assessments have been extremely insightful by allowing me to
view and discuss my strengths and weaknesses as an educator. My strengths have
helped me to view myself in a positive light as an educator and what areas I am
strong and confident in. My weaknesses have revealed areas in my teaching where I
can continue to progress and improve as an educator and hope to build to my full
potential. With my new action plan in the works, I hope to improve myself as an
educator and continue to grow and progress towards my full potential in hopes of
becoming a future elementary teacher.