Masters in Education - College of William and Mary - (Winner)
Editors Note: This student story essay was selected as 1st place winner from BrainTrack's Teaching Scholarship for Spring, 2011. At the time of submittal this winner, Meagan Lynne Taylor, was studying for a Masters in the Art of Elementary Education at The College of William and Mary, School of Education.
Wishes Had Known | Advice on Career | Study TipsWhat do you wish you had known about selecting and entering your business school that would be helpful to others going into teaching?
There are numerous factors to consider when selecting a pre-service teaching program. Certainly the reputation of the school, the cost of tuition, the duration of the program, the courses offered, and the career services provided are all key factors to deliberate. Though prospective teachers generally take these factors into account, they frequently overlook the socioeconomic and cultural dynamics of their target place of employment and the diversity of their prospective peers as important considerations in making their decision.
Before selecting a pre-service teaching program, it is vital for prospective teachers to consider the socioeconomic and cultural characteristics of the location where they would like to teach and choose a program that will equip them with the skills necessary for that specific educational environment. Prospective teachers are frequently advised to consider the certification requirements and employment benefits of their target location when selecting a pre-service program.
The social, economic, and political characteristics of the target location are frequently ignored in the decision process. These characteristics, however, integrally shape the educational needs of a community. The skill sets necessary for effective teaching vary widely depending on these educational needs. Thus, it is essential for prospective teachers to choose a program which allows them to develop the social and cultural competencies they will need to teach in the location of their choice.
If a prospective teacher plan to teach in an urban school, for instance, it would be practical to consider selecting a program that will allow him or her to student teach in urban classrooms. If he or she plans on teaching in an area with substantial immigrant populations, it would be wise to consider selecting a pre-service school with a well-developed Teaching English as a Second Language program. Essentially, it is best for prospective teachers to choose a program which allows them to acclimate to the educational setting in which they plan to teach, thus enabling them to better understanding their future students’ educational needs.
Another frequently ignored factor to consider in selecting a pre-service program is the diversity of the student body. When prospective teachers select a pre-service program, they are also selecting colleagues who will both challenge and support them. As teaching is a highly collaborative field, their choice of colleagues can greatly shape their development as teachers. Choosing a pre-service program with a diverse student body allows prospective teachers to be exposed to a wide array of perspectives, ideas, and personal experiences. This exposure spurs innovation and widens multicultural understanding, thus enabling future teachers to create an inclusive and engaging classroom environment for all of their students.
Similarly, students should strive to develop friendly relationships with their professors and colleagues, as both are key resources. Teaching students should also seek to immerse themselves in the communities surrounding their education schools as well. Understanding the broader community will greatly inform their student teaching endeavors as it will enable them to nourish parental and community support for their students. If teaching students take this advice, they will optimize the education they receive at the school of their choice.>
Other than school, what would you advise people entering the teaching field to consider or prepare for?
While most teachers’ contracts are based on forty hour work weeks, teaching frequently requires a time commitment well beyond forty hours a week. Planning time often is not factored into teachers’ school days, which means they must plan lessons, grade assignments, call parents, and prepare materials after school. Some teachers also provide additional academic support for their students after school, offering review sessions or tutoring. Furthermore, nourishing productive relationships with students, their parents, and the broader community support typically requires extracurricular involvement such as attending sports games and school performances, sponsoring a club, and participating in community events.
This extensive time commitment can lead many teachers to feel underpaid. This feeling is exacerbated by the fact that teachers frequently must spend their own money to acquire supplies and incentives. Such financial concerns have turned many away from teaching. Teachers should remember, however, that teachers only work nine months of the year. This may mean that teachers have to pursue summer work to maintain financial stability.
Though teachers often find the time commitment exhausting and financial compensation measly, it is often the emotional commitment that teachers find most draining. There are many expectations placed on teachers by parents, students, and the community. In the classroom, teachers are frequently expected to take on the role of advisor, friend, nurse, counselor, and sometimes honorary parent. Beyond the classroom, teachers are generally expected to maintain professionalism and be a constant role model. Because of all these frequently competing expectations, earning respect can be very difficult work for a teacher.
While these commitments may seem formidable, most teachers would say that the rewards far outweigh the struggles. The profound dedication teachers demonstrate inside and outside of the classroom enable them to support, challenge, and inspire their students, impacting positive change on a personal and societal level.
What study tips would you recommend to other teaching students?
The best teachers are expert learners. This does not necessarily mean they are encyclopedic storehouses of knowledge. Rather, they know how to learn. They recognize that learning is a mutable skill and understand that students must develop the ability to learn in order to efficiently master content. They are savants of metacognition and know that helping students identify and utilize metacognitive strategies is a critical component of quality instruction. Thereby, prospective teachers would do well to practice reflective learning throughout their pre-service programs, expanding their own metacognitive abilities.
Teachers who reflect upon their struggles and triumphs as a learner are better able to empathize with their students, anticipating difficulties their students might encounter and equipping them with techniques to overcome these difficulties. Pre-service education programs provide wonderful opportunity for prospective teachers to practice such reflective learning, sampling and evaluating a variety of meta-cognitive strategies that they can later impart to their students.
Towards these ends, I personally have found metacognitive note-taking to be immensely helpful and would highly recommend it. In my classes, I use the margins of my notes to make simple annotations regarding my affective and cognitive responses to the pedagogical techniques employed by my professors. Similarly, I keep a study log which briefly documents study strategies I use at home.
When I struggle to understand or remember content, I return to my metacognitive notes and attempt to discern the root of my difficulties. I then challenge myself try various techniques overcoming these difficulties: mnemonic devices, requesting further explanation from a classmate, rereading and scanning for details, analogical thinking, mind-mapping, self-regulating my attention in class, and others. Then, I record how various strategies impact my learning. I frequently talk to my classmates about the learning strategies they use as well, taking note of their input. Such dialogue provides new ideas for me to try and elucidates the effectiveness of different methods for diverse learners. Prospective teachers who utilize metacognitive note-taking will not only identify and hone the strategies that optimize their personal learning, but develop expansive toolkit to share with their future students.