Future Aims
As I complete work towards completing my Master's Degree, there are many things that I want to expand on and begin to apply in earnest to my teaching. I am a strong believer in the idea that nobody is every done learning. Due to that, I aim to continue challenging myself to get better at my craft in the classroom. Specifically, I want to work on structuring my classroom more effectively, challenge myself and students to use different types of technology, and develop more of my own activities in the classroom.
The first thing that I want to focus on changing in my classroom is how I structure it. I currently teach in a high needs school district where many students have undiagnosed cases of ADHD. Many of these students will struggle in my class because I tend to give a lot of work time for students in class. I want to change the structure a bit so that I have the opportunity to break down lessons into smaller fragments that aren't as daunting. One tool I would like to use to address this is Focus Keeper. It is a timer that breaks down work time and includes breaks. I want to allow a "brain break" in my classroom so that students are able to recharge using a short break. This timer uses the Pomodoro method to help people focus better and stay on task. I believe that incorporating this into my classroom could greatly benefit my students. The focus timers usually begin with a twenty five minute focus timer and then goes into a five minute break. Since my classes are fifty five minutes, this gives me the opportunity to have two focus sessions and one break.
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Another thing that I would like to incorporate into my classroom is expanding our use of technology in the classroom. I am grateful that this program has shown me a number of new technologies that I can bring into my classroom. I want to do this because I want my students to become more hands on and create things rather than just state things. In the past, I have tried having students create a movie but I don't think that I scaffolded enough to allow them to work. I want to help them expand that knowledge of editing videos and creations because that is something that they enjoy as I have seen especially when it relates to using Tiktok and other social media. One program I am considering playing around with is Microsoft Clipchamp. Our school runs off of Microsoft products and I am trying to find a simple way to get students more involved in creating their work in a way that they enjoy more. My thought process is that students will find these types of activities to be more engaging because they pertain to things that they find use in. This provides me with a great answer to when a student asks me why they need to do this assignment.
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Lastly, I would like to focus on developing more of my own activities. At the start of my career, I was given very few resources to work with. To get ideas, I spent a great deal of time using Teachers Pay Teachers to help come up with lessons. I am still not against using this tool, I just want to expand and once I am done with this program I want to take some more time to build activities that are specifically designed for my students and don't require the same amount of editing. One tool that I am considering to help with this though is ChatGPT. I want to use this as a means of helping me take my ideas and turn them into interactive lessons for my students. The ultimate goal in this case is more engaging lessons that I know the students will enjoy and that they will find use in.
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Overall, I know that I have a lot to learn still. That is exciting to me. I aspire to continue building myself up to get better at my craft as long as I am teaching. These specific areas though are what I believe are the most attainable for me in the coming school year. Hopefully, this experimenting will lead to more great things in the future.
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References
CHATGPT - latest news and chat about ai. ChatGPT. (n.d.). https://chatgpt.com
Focus Keeper. Pomodoro Timer - Focus Keeper. (n.d.). https://focuskeeper.co/
Microsoft Clipchamp. Clipchamp. (n.d.). https://app.clipchamp.com/