InTASC Reflection
The 9th inTASC deals with the manner in which the teacher exhibits responsibility for professional learning and consistent reflection as well as demonstrates a commitment to professional development. InTASC 9 highlights the importance of being a learner as well as a teacher but also touches on teaching ethical ways to deal with information. This latter part is particularly necessary in today’s increasingly information driven world as well as an increasing use of social media.
What we are seeing now, and there is little indication that this will stop, is a bombardment of information and data and our students need to be equipped with the skill necessary to defend themselves. They may not be used to seeing sources cited if most of the content they are exposed to are memes on instagram. Their first encounter with plagiarism may be watermarks made by instagram users in order to ensure that their material is theirs, even if it is copied so will their watermark. What students need to learn in the classroom are ways in which they can respect the material of others by means of citing and documentation. In the lower levels of foreign language classrooms there are not too many opportunities to cite others since teachers must structure a very complex language into smaller, more swallowable bites. But in higher levels, say Spanish 4 and AP levels, students will regularly be citing authors and analysis of texts written in the target language. Learning how to cite will ensure that the students respect the work of others and may think twice when reading something that lacks citations.
Ongoing professional development is the second key part of this InTASC. To continuously learn means to attend conferences, read, listen to podcasts, watch documentaries, and participate in conversations all related to teaching, pedagogy, and a teacher’s specific content area. For foreign language teachers, there is a podcast called “The Cult of Pedagogy” and “Truth for Teachers”, both of which have been recommended to me by a master latin teacher at Dulaney high school. Foreign language teachers must also keep a keen eye on linguistic research, particularly in the area of second language acquisition. Teachers need to look at journals like The Foreign Language Annals which is the official journal for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Journal of Secondary Language Writing which focuses purely on writing in the target language and the teaching related, and Language Acquisition: a Journal of Developmental Linguistics which delves more deeply into theory as well as practice. The journal mentioned are all print journals but there are many online as well.
The amount of ongoing research surrounding foreign language acquisition serves to show that, in the grand scheme of things, we know very little about how to most successfully teach a foreign language and what processes are truly at play when acquisition is occurring. As teachers, we must be able to adapt ourselves constantly and continuously learn.
What we are seeing now, and there is little indication that this will stop, is a bombardment of information and data and our students need to be equipped with the skill necessary to defend themselves. They may not be used to seeing sources cited if most of the content they are exposed to are memes on instagram. Their first encounter with plagiarism may be watermarks made by instagram users in order to ensure that their material is theirs, even if it is copied so will their watermark. What students need to learn in the classroom are ways in which they can respect the material of others by means of citing and documentation. In the lower levels of foreign language classrooms there are not too many opportunities to cite others since teachers must structure a very complex language into smaller, more swallowable bites. But in higher levels, say Spanish 4 and AP levels, students will regularly be citing authors and analysis of texts written in the target language. Learning how to cite will ensure that the students respect the work of others and may think twice when reading something that lacks citations.
Ongoing professional development is the second key part of this InTASC. To continuously learn means to attend conferences, read, listen to podcasts, watch documentaries, and participate in conversations all related to teaching, pedagogy, and a teacher’s specific content area. For foreign language teachers, there is a podcast called “The Cult of Pedagogy” and “Truth for Teachers”, both of which have been recommended to me by a master latin teacher at Dulaney high school. Foreign language teachers must also keep a keen eye on linguistic research, particularly in the area of second language acquisition. Teachers need to look at journals like The Foreign Language Annals which is the official journal for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Journal of Secondary Language Writing which focuses purely on writing in the target language and the teaching related, and Language Acquisition: a Journal of Developmental Linguistics which delves more deeply into theory as well as practice. The journal mentioned are all print journals but there are many online as well.
The amount of ongoing research surrounding foreign language acquisition serves to show that, in the grand scheme of things, we know very little about how to most successfully teach a foreign language and what processes are truly at play when acquisition is occurring. As teachers, we must be able to adapt ourselves constantly and continuously learn.
Artifacts: Implicit Bias ReflectionsAs student teachers we were analyzed for three separate behaviors: calling on students, management of behavior issues and praising students. Our mentor teachers observed us for these behaviors and took notes. We then participated in a discussion of the notes for that day and how it related to implicit bias. Below are the downloadable files for the reflections made after each one of these conversations.
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