Education Application Questions

Instructions: Reflecting on your current or past teaching experience(s) [including student teaching], your professional experience(s), educational background and pedagogy construct an original response to the scenario and three required questions below. Concisely respond in three separate paragraphs ranging, in total, between 400-700 words.

Scenario: You have recently been hired to teach at a New York City public school. Prior to your first day of school, you receive some background on your new class. Reviewing the information you see that roughly 30% of your expected students are currently performing below grade level.

-What steps will you take during the first few days/weeks of school to orient yourself to the needs and context of your students and to familiarize yourself to the school community (e.g. co-workers, administration/principal, parents, etc.)?

-Describe your end of academic year goals for your students. What do you hope they will be able to achieve? How will you know if you are successful? How might you adjust your goals and strategies to meet the needs of learners below grade level or learners with other special academic needs?

-What specific strategies or next steps would you pursue if your instructional efforts are not yielding your expected results by the first-half of the school year?

Education Application Questions

Name

Department/Institution

Course

Instructor

In the first few days in a school, the most important thing is familiarizing and understanding the school community. Learning the school facilitates understanding the school operations. In the first day, I will familiarize with the students and teachers to know the school, and different locations such as the classrooms and the teacher’s workroom. This will be essential in familiarizing with the school in order to meet the fellow teachers as well as students in the classroom. Familiarizing with the school community will help the foster relationship with everyone and getting to know each other well (Epstein, 2018).

After understanding the school layout, it is important to get used to the students and the teachers through communicating effectively with them. For instance, having open communication with the students will foster a good understanding of the issues that they are facing as well as their experiences in the school. I will involve the students’ contribution to making the classroom rules and offer them an opportunity to offer them a chance in the operations of the class. Meeting with the co-workers and approaching them with concerns and questions will help in building a relationship and have a detailed understanding of the school.

After identifying with the students, I will meet the parents of some of the students that are underperforming and talk it out about the issues and experiences that their sons or daughters are undergoing. Meeting the parents will be essential in helping improve student performance. Considerably, to be an effective and successful teacher, it is important to understand the students and empathize with sensitive issues that will me the students feel better and feel the support of their teacher (Epstein, 2018). I will be planning to communicate with the senior teachers in order to understand the school policies and gather more information about the school and the student’s needs.

The academic goals that I will set will be simple and effective for the success of the student. Academic goals that I will look up to this year will be making learning to be fun again, creating an ultimately organize the classroom, grading of students fairly and effectively, and inspiring the students. This will be important in building self-improvement among the students and empower the students.

My main aim is that all the students perform better than what they are achieving now. This does not mean improving mainly on the subject marks but also helping the student learn to express their interests and needs. Considerably, most students have failed to improve their performance since they do not have the capacity to express their needs. To ensure that each of the students benefits from the academic goals, I will ensure that students discuss with each other and pay extra attention to the students that have low grades and special education needs.

The specific strategies may fail to be understood by the students, thus failing to meet the expectations of the academic strategies. Therefore, in case of failure, I will have to adjust the strategy to monitor the students. This will include special monitoring of the students, whereby I will have a close understanding of the students. After the first half, I will monitor the students through assessing their performance and evaluating the students to have a proper evaluation of what may be effective to perform and grasp.

Monitoring and assessing learning will help in focusing attention on the students that are still finding it challenging. Relatively, I will encourage the students to have self-correct and monitoring tools to assess their own earning, which will also foster their success. Relatively, helping the students understand how their learning and schooling apply through practical learning in the real world. These strategies will motivate the students through increased engagement in learning and reform efforts of improvement.

References

Epstein, J. L. (2018). School, family, and community partnerships: Preparing educators and improving schools. Routledge.