Assignment 1A: MAT 671

My name is Meagan Blied and I have been teaching for 18 years.  Over those 18 years I can say I have changed my teaching philosophy, style, and focus many times.  Today,  I would describe myself as a teacher who spends a lot of time building relationships with students.  I work to push my students to submit their very best work for that day, week, or quarter.  I am a teacher who believes in second and third chances; I may have been accused of being a softie a time or two.  Being an athletic coach and a parent are probably the two biggest influences on how I develop priorities and the climate in my classroom.  My students have traditionally had difficult experiences in high school and I need to make it clear to them immediately how my classroom is different and why they can be successful if that is the path they choose.  I focus on rewarding my students for what they do, as opposed to punishing them for what they do not do.

I work with 28 at-risk 16 to 18 year olds who have been removed from their home comprehensive high schools because they are behind in credits.  To refer to my population as diverse is an understatement.  I work very hard to be sure that all of my students are being challenged in meaningful ways that will help them continue to move forward academically despite their varied starting points.  I rely on a variety of writing organizers to help my students be successful with writing.  Writing is the most difficult skill my students have to practice and many of my students have never written an essay EVER!  This means that scaffolding and supports must be built in to all of my writing assignments regardless of how big or small.  I also teach annotating text as an important reading tool for the varied reading levels I face each day.  Most of the writing we do is argument writing which makes it easier for me to find articles on the same subject at different reading levels.  This helps me accommodate my diverse classroom.  I am currently working on developing assignments with a variety of end products so students have a choice in how they communicate what they have learned instead of always requiring a formal writing assignment.

My personality test was interesting: I am usually a very strong ISFJ and today I was an ESFJ.  I might be more extroverted now than ever before in my life.  My personality is reflected in my classroom in that establishing a respectful climate is very important and I want the time my students spend in my classroom to be positive and uplifting.  I am very organized and spend a lot of my prep time creating directions for assignments, and objectives that are clearly sequenced for the students so they can articulate what they are learning each day and understand how what they work on today will help them tomorrow.  I build in reflection activities for my students which connects more to the introvert in me that doesn't appear on my most recent test results.  I have incorporated reflection activities more and more as a way to encourage my students to think about their learning success.  I use them at the end of a unit for feedback for myself, but also as a way to make sure my students are considering my feedback when they are writing new academic/behavioral goals for themselves.  Because I tend to be very sensitive to environment myself, I think my students feel safe to discuss their personal lives in a way that can help me know them better while also helping them academically.  I am a caretaker for sure and even though my class has a reputation for being difficult, the relationships that are built outweigh the fear of the rigor.  

The learning style test is a good one for teachers to remember.  I am most familiar with Gardner's learning styles, but the idea is to remember that not everyone is a linguistic learner.  Many of my students are visual learners and it is important for teachers to aspire to reach as many different learning styles as possible.  I tend to write a lot of directions and have to remember to use bullet points instead of paragraphs.  I have gotten a lot better over the years at making my handouts visually appealing to students.  I don't want them overwhelmed right off the bat.  Because I am so heavily sequential, verbal and sensing, I like to learn different ways to process information and both my students and colleagues can teach me that.  I often allow my students to write essays in whatever order makes the most sense to them.  Many student writers prefer to write body paragraphs first and introductions last.  While that doesn't work for my brain, I am always impressed when I see how different the process can be while still having a successful outcome.  I think my coaching taught me early on that there is more than one way to do something right.  Can you imagine what professional baseball players would say if they were all forced to swing the same way?  I am open to the creativity and different learning styles of my students and I offer supports that help the many different learning styles learn and communicate what they know.  I try to hit as many of those styles as possible in a quarter.