Reflective Practice Response

Mary Raczek
Throughout the course of my program, my teaching philosophy has grown and developed to
reflect my most current beliefs. Originally, my teaching strategies revolved around controlling
the students and making sure that they were sitting still and quietly with their focus solely on me.
This semester however, I have been able to alter my teaching philosophy to recognize the fact
that children are active in nature, and thus will learn best when they have opportunities to be
active and make their own choices. There were multiple program experiences that were
instrumental in changes this philosophy as they gave me the ability to see the ways in which my
new philosophy was more effective.
During my placement in a pre-k setting with children ages 3-5 is where I gained a majority of
my beliefs that support my teaching philosophy. I started the semester by implementing lessons
that were primarily seated on the carpet and discussion based. The children were constantly
antsy, talkative, and asking to get up to use the bathroom as an excuse to get up and move
around.
I knew after my first few lessons in this setting that I needed to find a way to engage the
students in more active lessons in order to better deliver the content and hold the childrens
attention. This understanding demonstrates my ability to reflect upon my own teaching and make
changes when necessary. This reflective piece is critical to NAEYC Standard 6- Becoming a
Professional. I demonstrated the ability to reflect upon and critically view my lessons in order to
make informed decisions about my teaching. This reflection of my lessons allows me to meet
best practice qualities or engaging learners in an active lesson. Additionally, this meets Illinois
Professional Teaching Standard (IPTS) 2- Content and Pedagogical knowledge, IPTS Standard
5- Instructional Delivery, NAEYC Standard 1- Promoting Child Development and Learning. I
was able to relate what I know about teaching, the fact that children need active experiences to
learn, to my in-class instruction.
It is one thing to be able to state that children are active learners and need opportunities to
gain knowledge kinesthetically and actively, and another thing to be able to implement this type
of instruction into the classroom. This change in my philosophy is reflected in many of my
lessons. However, for my portfolio I have chosen to display an active and engaging lesson during
Day 2 Lesson 2 of my edTPA, defining and listing adjectives. This lesson demonstrates my
ability to implement active learning within the classroom and meets Best Practices of Child-
Centered Learning, Experiential Learning, Collaborative and Constructivism. When learning
about adjectives, I felt the best way to teach would be to provide the students with a real-life
experience they could use to create new knowledge. They were able to describe the popcorn as
we popped it in the classroom and as we ate it! This memorable experience has been brought up
by the children numerous times and cemented an ability to utilize adjectives into their language.
After the lesson, we were also able to touch upon the best practice skill of reflection. After the
children were immersed in the direct experience of making popcorn, the children had the
opportunity to look back and describe or debrief from their experience. This written description
of their experience encouraged functional use of adjectives which helped them better understand
what they learn.
While active and engaging lessons are beneficial for all students, I find them to be
particularly beneficial for diverse learners that each teacher will encounter within their
classroom. Students who speak another language or who have learning disabilities will be the
primary beneficiaries from these more involved lessons. When they have an opportunity to
engage in their learning and not simple drill and repeat they will understand the content better.
One lesson that I have taught this semester was a math lesson in which the children were the
manipulatives in our addition sentences. The opportunity for the children to move around
benefited these different types of learners. This is an additional example of NAEYC standards 1,
4, and 5. As it displays my ability to promote child learning through best practices, use
developmentally effective approaches to connect with the children through positive interactions
and using my content knowledge of ways to add to support the childrens acquisition of
mathematics concepts.
In addition to lessons that engage children in active learning, I also believe in giving my
students choice. I realized one day in my student teaching placement that I consistently corrected
a student who stood at his desk to do his work. One time he asked me why he had to sit in his
chair and I realized I had no justification for my request other than thats how you are
supposed to work. In reality, this student was focused on his work, not disrupting any other
students learning or posing any danger to anyone. From then on, I decided to be more flexible
and grant the students choices about where they would work and how they would work as long
as they were working. I believe that this aspect of my philosophy demonstrates my ability to
enact best practice while respecting the childrens diverse needs and abilities.
Overall, my theory of education has developed to display my beliefs in children having
the ability to be active learners in their classroom. I provide them with choices on where they
would like to work as well as give them opportunities to be hands on learners. My personal
theory, as well as my instructional choices demonstrate my ability to meet best practices,
NAEYC standards and ITPS.