The Growth Mindset
Teachers utilize knowledge, experience, and practice to assess how learners flourish and develop inside and outside the classroom. Teachers must understand how learners construct knowledge, acquire new skills, and generate critical thinking skills. Teachers recognize that students learn individually and maximize development by engaging students along varying cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical developmental needs. In order to achieve these goals, teachers must be aware and willing to modify instruction throughout the day, lesson, or school year to engage strengths and combat weaknesses. Furthermore, teachers must realize that learner development is a group effort and collaborate with families, colleagues, and others to support successful student growth.
I firmly believe that learner development is is the essential aspect of being a successful teacher. I plan to fully commit to the idea of the intellectual and emotional growth through proper instruction. The idea of a static mind is the antithesis to the idea of education and the prospect of the expansion of intelligence. My personal educational philosophy is dedicated to the idea of a growth mindset and development of potential. In order to achieve this, I monitored and assessed students throughout a two-week unit during student teaching. By implementing a pre-test before the unit and a post-test after the unit, I could place a numerical and tangible evaluation on the progress of many students. While only part of the equations, these assessments aided my pursuit of student growth goals.
A further step for teachers is recognizing students as individual learners in order to procure development. Simply put, to develop individual minds, all participants must be recognized as individuals. These ideas are often expressed in terms of varying instruction and differentiated learning styles In my experience, I think that this begins with the teacher creating activities and assessments that reflect personality and individualism. Project-based learning and assessments are great ways of achieving these goals by giving students greater agency over their work. I created an infographic project for my geography classes that incorporated interpreting data, synthesizing information, and creating a visual. By doing this, I gave students the opportunity and freedom to develop their own ideas about a real-life topic.
Furthermore, I think that teachers must incorporate a variety of assessments throughout their lesson plans. During my teaching, I utilized separate types of formative assessments throughout lesson to constantly monitoring development and growth. These assessments can range from the aforementioned pre-tests to questioning to quizzes, but the goal is to assure that the students are developing the proper knowledge to succeed. I demonstrate the use of formative questioning and assessment throughout this United States History lesson plan.
For more detailed information on my ideas regarding learner differences, please see my essay on Virginia Professional Practice Standard (PPS) #7: Student Academic Progress.