Learning Letter

For my book talks, I feel like I did good. Full disclosure, I choose books I have already read before, but I also do wish I had chosen books you haven't heard of before. Regardless, I think I did well in giving my thoughts on the book and how I would teach it. I think I could have gone more in-depth with the teaching ideas section of the assignment. That would be my only critique. But I really enjoyed listening to other book talks. I look forward to reading some books I haven't heard of and maybe have the opportunity to teach them in my classroom.

For my unit plan, I feel like it still needs work to be a solid unit plan. I think the lessons still need work in order to make them more engaging for students. My problem was figuring out how. I think I just need more practice and confidence in writing my ideas down for unit plans. Of course, this is something that I will definitely be working on as I continue my studies.

Through our readings and discussions, I found one of our first discussions very interesting. When we were talking about "Discussions as a Way of Teaching" I found it interesting to read about the different ways one can have discussions. I really liked other discussions on assessment and edTPAs which were helpful. But, I think my favorite discussions were when we talked about the books like Night and Into The Wild. It was interesting to hear how other people wouldn't teach Night and/or Into The Wild and their rationale for it. I found it amazing that "just because you don't like a book" is a good enough reason not to teach it. For some reason, I thought there were books teachers just had to teach because the school/administration wanted them to (maybe that is the case in some places).

I think that once I start my practicum I'll have a better idea how I really want to be as a teacher, but through this class I learned that I want to teach the books I'm really passionate about, but I also want to have students choose what they want to read as well. I would like to have units where we read as a class and individual units where students can choose what they want to read and then present to the class. I think as far as assessment goes, I don't like having tests. I think having students write analytical papers about what they are reading and have them participate in discussions are better ways of assessing what students have learned. This is how I see myself teaching.