Throughout the masters program at SUNY Cortland, I have been continuously questioning my developing understandings of teaching, learning, and schooling and have developed a philosophy of my own thoughts and ideas on teaching. I've read and learned about the ISTE standards for teachers and students. These five standards for teachers and seven standards for students include the qualities and skills expected regarding technology. I explored with these standards a lot while creating artifacts and now have a much better understanding of them than I did before beginning this program in May. From my wide-ranging experiences exploring with different technology products as an emerging educator, I have developed my own beliefs about how I think students learn best, what is necessary for teachers to do in order to be effective, some effective teaching practices, and my own personal and professional perspectives that would guide my actions in the future.
During my time in the eLearning and the American Classroom course for the masters program, I learned of many major concepts, principles, theories and research that relate best to the ISTE standards for teachers and students. I've realized I must fulfill the seven standards and expectations for students first before achieving the ISTE standards for teachers. Teachers can construct rich learning environments by taking into consideration any materials, technology, equipment, and manipulatives when setting up the classroom that will contribute to the development, learning, and motivation of students. A teacher is able to do this because he or she is a Knowledge Constructor, which I've represented by evaluating websites' credibility. Community resources can also contribute to positive environments for students. The educational games and applications descriptions could pertain to the Innovative Designer standard by identifying how those applications and games could be used in the classroom, while the Computational Thinker standard can relate to my data collection and analysis. Finally, the Creative Communicator standard can correlate with my resume and audio book; exploring and choosing a template to create my resume was a tool for meeting my specific objective of becoming a teacher and converting a children's book into an audio book allowed me to "responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations" (ISTE, 2016, p. 2). Additionally, I believe using other digital tools such as Blackboard, Weebly, Edmodo, etc. helps me to connect and collaborate with other learners as a Global Collaborator. Collaboration with families, colleagues and the larger community is essential for an educator and connecting with others in order to benefit the students and the teacher as well. I know that as a teacher, it is extremely beneficial to keep up to date with what is currently happening in the world. Global events are constantly occurring, and new laws are always emerging or changing, so teachers should be aware of what is going on in the case that it affects them or their students respectively. I try to take time to keep up-to-date with the news and major events that are happening in our society and world today.
I am constantly growing as a professional, however there are still many areas I need to work on. Reflecting on my experience thus far, I really wish I were able to manage my time better, as that is a critical ability that educators should have. Just like students can have disabilities, teachers can have them too and I would never want any disability to affect me negatively as an emerging educator and future teacher. I would just need to learn to cope with whatever the situation may be and not let it conflict with my future students, classroom and career. My philosophy of teaching is an evolving viewpoint that I constantly transformed throughout my time at SUNY Cortland and as a pre-service teacher. I know I will need to revisit and revise it again periodically throughout my teaching career.
International Society for Technology in Education. (2016). National educational technology standards for students. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards/for-students-2016
International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National educational technology standards for teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards/standards-for-teachers