Think about one of your recent presentations. Was there a student who was inattentive? How could you involve that student and draw him/her into the le

There are always students who are inattentive and I always wonder how I can keep them paying attention. At the same time it is hard for me to say anything to them because I always used to sleep in class too. Partially because I was tired but mostly because I wasn't interested in the material being taught (and that's kind of common sense, if something is exciting it will keep my interest and I won't be going to sleep) so to me that is saying that I need to make my classes more interesting so that I don't have sleepers. Often I try to use humor and wit to keep kids interested, I feel like this is fairly successful. They say they enjoy my class a lot more then their other classes so hopefully they are more attentive to what I say then in their other classes.

Classroom interruptions unfortunately occur. Do these affect your instruction? How do you get students back on track?

I feel like it does not affect my teaching that badly. I am sure that I have room for growth and will get better as time goes on, but I feel like it is not a tough issue for me...That being said EFHS has an incredible amount of interruptions. There are multiple interruptions a period. But maybe it will get better as the semester continues.

Your lesson took less time than expected. How could you utilize the time left for your subject?

I would utilize the time to talk about something else related to social studies. Probably a current event. In some of my history classes at wvu instructors would do that and it was a good 10 minute time killer but one that was interesting and engaging. It allowed for a teachable moment a lot of times. Plus, one of the benefits of teaching social studies is that any current event is going to be something related to social studies. The recent economic downturn...economics. 2012 election...politcal science. All of these are social studies related and thus teachable at any time. Plus there is a ton of material (news websites, news channels, blogs, pictures, opinion pieces etc) to choose from.

PDS Plan

By utilizing the plan this semester it was much easier complete assignments. In prior semesters, it was difficult to keep track of time and assignments seemed to sneak up on me. Being able to visualize when work was due gave me the idea and incentive to plan ahead. While working through previous years, work seemed to overwhelm me, due to the fact that I procrastinated to a large extent. This semester seemed to move much smoother, allowing me to work on my teaching skills rather than worry about assignments. On the other hand, while completing the plan I received the feeling of a work overload. This was caused by the ability to view all assignments at the beginning of the semester. Although, there was a vast amount of time to complete the work, it was somewhat overwhelming to view all of the work for the entire semester. For the most part I would recommend doing this every year, because it allows teacher prospects to stay on task. It also provides incentives to communicate with your host teacher about assignments and lesson plans

two other characteristics

As I stated before about being a lifelong learner, a teacher in our modern society must be able to adapt and develop as times change. Ethics is extremely important in education today. Educators must understand how to approach delicate situations with the proper technique and ethical value. An educator's decision within the classroom must reflect an atmosphere of equality and high standard. Every student must feel as if they are a high priority to the school and that their presence is required. Many articles I have read and studied have shown that many students feel as though teachers play favorites or ignore certain students. This only adds to the difficulty of incorporating all students into a lesson and increasing the material retention. An educator is meant to provide a positive roll model to students in a classroom. By acting in a respectful and ethical manner we can help influence the youth of today to become leaders of tomorrow. Being liberally educated is another characteristic that I feel plays a major roll in the development of educators today. Having a well rounded knowledge on content can only improve the effectiveness of a teacher. Many times material in a class can relate to material learned in another content. A well rounded mindset can enable a teacher to apply material in various views for different types of learners to understand in their own way. By improving teaching techniques and giving interesting information will only improve the student involvement and overall outcome of the class

Improving Learning Goals

While at PDS I have developed numerous ideas about how to improve my performance or growth as an educator. I have found the area needing the most improvement in my practice was dispensing the material in a fun and easy to understand way. While lecturing students have a hard time to relate the material to their lives. This makes it difficult to dispense such detailed material to the class. Now that I am in my PDS more, I have found it easier to relate the material to a wide array of students. I can now understand them on a personal level which allows me to use things that interest them as examples within the class. I have learned that it is extremely important to know your student's interests and passions, so you can help them understand how the material relates to themselves. I will constantly look to improve all aspects of my teaching so that I can improve the learning capacity of my classroom.

Lifelong Learner

I think that being a lifelong learner is a pretty important characteristic for education majors and educators in general. An educator by definition has to be pretty passionate about learning (because were obviously not doing it for the money)and it is important for a social studies major like myself because my content area is a constantly evolving and changing field. For example, the recent Egyptian revolution and the ensuing unrest in many other Arabic countries have to potential to change the political landscape of an entire region.
Not only is it important in our core areas, but it is also important because pedagogy is also constantly changing. For someone that has been involved in schools for essentially two decades, I have seen emphasis on many different things I call "testing fads". I can remember when I was really encouraged to be able to free write, which then developed to AR and Running Records to measure my reading and comprehension ability. When I was in high school I would help test students using dibels and currently my PDSs preach standardized testing and AYP.
Furthermore, I think it is really important for teachers to hold education important; not only their students education but every one's education including their own. If someone is passionate about learning and their own learning then by default they will place emphasis on others learning that material. Personally, I am really not looking forward to graduating because I will no longer have easy access to the world of academia, especially my history and political science classes. Lifelong learning