Chapter 27 Reflection

After reading chapter 27, I had a little trouble making connections between our profession as teacher and the ID tech world. However, I managed to come up with some goals that reflect my strengths and are supported by the reading this week.

I tend to be a good planner and always looking for ways to improve myself in the field of education, whether it be teaching or behavior management. I think the goals I have in place put those strengths hand in hand with each other.

The first goal I have is to incorporate more technology into my teaching. In other words, be competent in teaching with technology that would really engage students. “Competencies are defined as quality of being competent; as having suitable or sufficient skill, knowledge, experience or being qualified to performed a task,” pg. 272. I want to be able to be competent in the area of technology so that lessons are more creative and engaging and it looks really good on a resume as well. Being competent also gives me an edge over other candidates when looking for a teaching job. Not only that, but students may learn more from cool visuals and hearing videos. In other words, it tailors to different learning styles.

The second goal is to have special education certification. In the chapter, there is a whole lot of talk of ID tech people not being certified and whether or not they should. “Certification can be viewed as recognition by a professional organization that an individual has met an agreed set of requirements,” page 283. I think if someone is in a professional field in education, then certification might be necessary for ID tech people. I mean teachers have to be certified in order to teach especially with NCLB that we love so much. I put my special education certification as a goal because without it, I cannot teach special education. At least I have not that kind of luck. Anyhow, this what I thought of when I read the certification piece of the chapter. But having a piece of paper saying that you are certified does not mean you are competent in that area either. “The competencies should reflect the skills of professional instruction/training designers regardless of their current jobs, positions, titles, academic degrees,” page 273. But in the other hand, it is impossible to get a teaching job without certification.

My last goal is to be a better designer of instructional design with the kids I work with currently. Page 275 shows chart 27.3 in planning, analyzing, designing, and developing instruction plans. Needs assessments must be conducted to find out where the student is needing help. From there, the instruction is designed. Planning is a must as well preparation. I want to be able to further pinpoint the exact problem a child might be having. The biggest example I can think of is reading. I run a couple of reading group with strategic students. I have a couple who can read fluently, but have no or little sense of comprehension. I should be able to use ID to do a diagnostic to find out why they are having trouble and do the proper intervention for that and monitor their progress. I think by becoming better at ID, I could help some students.