Michelle Finney

My classroom is a flower to which you are the bees

The field is representations of
the school were the teachers
come to teach the students the
common core curriculum. In the
field of the school the flowers are
planted to grow to build a great
school of teachers are planted to
grow by the leader of the school. As
the flowers grow the teachers are
learning and strengthening their
knowledge to teach the bees that
come along. Therefore, without the
field to glow, the teachers are not
going to have a school where they can teach.

Teachers are the flowers that provide the bases for the students to learn
within the field. The roots of the flower help support the teacher to
succeed in the classroom. Without
the administration supporting the
teacher, then the teacher is not able
to stand on their own to teach
students. As the stem symbolizes
the curriculum that the teacher
teaches, we see that without it we
cannot have the flower standing
straight. They take their curriculum
that they are provided and embody
their own teaching style which is
the petals to the flower. The petals must be interesting for the students
in the class or they will not come to learn the information in the class. Flying
along the bee will see the fun teaching style coming from the petals to suck
up the pollen and take the knowledge to the outside world.

The bees are the students flying around looking for the flower with the
best teaching style that catches their eyes. The flower then provides the
knowledge for the bees to absorb and take back to their home in the outside
world. Along the way the bees struggle to find their way to other flowers or
their way back home. This is caused by the weather who is the parents
and they are not being able to have the tools to help keep the students
 Michelle Finney

knowledge alive. This causes the bee

to lose the information that they
have learned and when they travel
along the path to the next flower
which is the next grade level, they
will not be prepared for learning new
knowledge that is being taught. This
will cause the student to be behind
the other bees and not want to learn
new information or have confidence
that they can learn.

When the flower stands alone

the teacher is showing that they
are alone and have no one to help
them along the way. This causes
the teacher to feel burned out from
teaching because they have no
support for collaboration form
others in their grade level. Another
struggle teachers face is not being
able to have the support from the
administration at the school. This
makes teaching hard because all of
the behavior problems, lessons,
and everything else is on the
teacher. This is no way for the
teacher to succeed and will make the bees not want to come to the pollen to
gather knowledge to take back to the real world to make honey and use for
future learning.

As bees gather the information

they learn from the flowers pollen.
The students take the knowledge
back to the beehive to process the
information that they learned. This
shows that the constructive
processing theory plays a role in
the bees life when they go to the
flower and collect the pollen to
take back home to make the honey.
 Michelle Finney

Once they make the honey the

bees are able to supply others with
the knowledge they have learned
from their teacher without having
to be told how to use the
information. As a result, the
students are analyzing their
information and ideas to become
great critical thinkers.

Reflective Statement for Metaphoric Model

SLO: Select/copy one of the four SLOs (in chart above) here and use Bold and Italics to
set it off from reflection body.

Employ leadership practices to optimize educational and institutional outcomes.

Relevance: How does this assignment demonstrate your competence with this SLO?

In the metaphoric model I mentioned that if a flower/teacher stands alone, the students are not
going to succeed in the classroom. The school needs to work together as leaders by helping out
each teacher. If the school administration does not back up their teachers the teachers are
going to become frustrated that they are not able to work in a safe environment. Then if the
teachers do not employ leadership amongst other teachers in the same grade level, the teacher
will not have the resources to help the students if they do not know how to teach a specific
lesson. Then the teacher will have to look up the information on their own and it will be harder
 Michelle Finney

for them to have a successful lesson because they are not strong in understand how to help
better the students. That is why leadership is very important to have in the educational world.

Significance: Explain the most significant aspect of your Metaphoric Model that you would
likely share with other professional educators. Justify your selection.

In the metaphoric model I used the example of a flower being alone to represent the teacher not
having support in the school that they are working for. When a teacher does not have support
from the administration then the teacher will feel at loss with the trouble they may be facing with
behavior or getting what the need to have a good teaching style. Another struggle the teacher
will face being alone in the school is not having the teacher support from other people in the
same grade as them. Some teachers will not want to share ideas with one another which will
make it hard for the teacher to know what is working and what is not. So collaboration is an
important part of teaching especially with the common core curriculum that we are teaching in
school. As you can see, for a teacher to have a successful classroom where students come to
learn they need the support of the administration and other teachers.

Growth Mindset: How does your model help you and your students develop a positive Growth
Mindset?

In the learning process the teacher is teaching the students the information necessary to take
back to the outside world to become critical thinkers. Teachers provide the students with the
knowledge and the students embrace the challenges by learning about the world around them.
Along the way, students will struggle with having to think on their own without the teachers help
because the teacher is not directly telling them what to do with the information that they have
learned. The teacher is merely a coach that provides the students with feedback about their
learning progress. This teaching style is not making the students fail as learners, but more of
learning from the feedback so it can encourage them to build off of what they are learning to
succeed.

Link to Theory: Describe/explain the theoretical/research base for your Metaphoric Model.

This metaphoric model of the flower and the bees connect with the constructivist theory. The
teachers are providing the students with the curriculum and using their teaching style to teach
the students.

Then the students become critical thinkers and use the learned information in the outside world.
Some of the students are going to fail along the way because they do not have the necessary
tools at home to continue to build on what they have learned. This relates to the flower and the
bees because the teacher attracts the bees to the information and then the bees take the
information back to the hive to make the honey. If the bees do not learn from the teacher then
they will not be able to make the honey when they return home. This is just like the students in
class when they take what they learned and apply it to the world outside of school
 Michelle Finney

Successful Learning: How does your Metaphoric Model support successful/ brain compatible
learning?

Learning happens and is developed by being challenged when challenged to complete more
difficult task. For example, in math when a student is learning how to count money, it is hard for
them to use their higher order of thinking if they have not learned the value of each coin. Then it
becomes hard for the students to think about adding the coins if they have not mastered the
value. So in order to help the student succeed with this difficult concept, the student needs to
practice understand the value of each coin before thinking about how to add the coins up that
they have in the pile. Therefore, the teacher must step in and help the student as a advisor, but
still have the student use higher order thinking to solve each problem.

Personalized Learning: How does you model accommodate personalized learning:

The personalized learning theory is incorporated into a constructivist theory teaching style. A
personalized teaching style is where the student is the leader and the teacher is the advisor. If
the student needs help the teacher will step in and advise the student on what they are
struggling with. This is exactly how a constructivist thinks because they want the student to use
their critical thinking skills to analyze their learning. This is helping the students build higher
order thinking skills that will help them later in life. However, if the student needs help, they can
still get advised from the teacher as an advisor.

Reflective Practice:

Reflection is both a retrieval and elaboration practice. As a means of understanding the

learning process explain how you were able to retrieve information on teaching/learning and
then elaborate on it as you created your Metaphoric Model.

From the metaphoric model that I used about the bees being the students
and the teacher being the flower, the teacher is teaching based off of a
constructivist model. In a constructivist theory, the student is shown to
retrieve information where the teacher controls the conversation so the
students become critical thinkers. The students are retrieving information as
being asked rather than telling to help them develop higher levels of
thinking. For example, in the metaphoric model, the bees are the traveling to
the flower to gather the pollen. Then the pollen is taken back to the beehive
to be processed into honey. If the bees do not know how to take the pollen
that they learned to the beehive to process it, they will not understand how
to make the honey. This is exactly how it is in school where the teacher
teaches and the students take what they learn and process it for higher
levels of critical thinking.