CP II Week 2: Why be Reflective?

After reading this week's post from our CSUSM EDSS 530 blog (blog link found to the left), I thought about how I am being reflective and the benefits from becoming this reflective practitioner. In thinking about the last two weeks on Clinical Practice II this is what I concluded:

As I reflect on the last two weeks for CP II, I think about how slow they have actually seemed to have gone and how much further I still have to go before I am able to have my very own classroom. Although we normally associate slow moving with boring, this was not the case. My first two weeks of CP II have been very eventful, interesting, and filled with learning (student and teacher learning that is!).

Reflecting on my actual teaching and my experience with my classes and cooperating teachers, I have had a very interesting experience. First of all, I want to say I am very much enjoying this semester. My two cooperating teachers and my three different classes could not have been more different. This being said it is amazing how they are so different. The differences fall into all categories including teaching strategies, characteristics of whole classes, homework implementation, personalities, individual students, technological opinions, and the list goes on. I have seen this as a great benefit to me as a teacher, a profession, and as a person. There is so much to learn from all of my experiences and I have greatly enjoyed trying to find myself and where I fit within these opinions.

Within these past two weeks I feel I have been the most reflective upon my own teaching, what is best for students learning, what is best for my students, my personal views about what is best, and so forth. Although there is so much to learn, there is also so much to keep straight and think about just in the past two weeks. After reading this weeks post on our CSUSM EDSS 530 blog, more than ever before I have found more purpose for scheduling a time and having a place to reflect upon my educational experiences. I hope to stop by my blog and reflect more often throughout these next 8 or so weeks in order to do this. I hope I am able to find professional myself and where I fit within this world of education, and hopefully you are able to follow me along this journey as well. Thanks for reading and stay tuned to further blog posts about me and my adventures in CP II.