2. List an important problem facing American education today and describe how you would address this problem in the position for which you are applying.

There are very few people who would argue about the importance of motivation in both teachers and students in American education in this day and age. Lack of motivation in our educational system can significantly debilitate the progress of education in today’s students. A proper education is a valuable and necessary tool, and we as educators play an important role in the American education system to thwart these kinds of issues. We must do everything possible in our hands to conquer these barriers between teachers and students and provide our students with a pleasurable education experience.

It seems as if it has become a trend in American education where each year students are becoming less and less motivated. This is where the role of a teacher comes in hand to motivate students for their own success, instead of failing them and not taking over the situation. Every teacher is unique in his or her own way but all teachers must have certain skills and attributes to motivate his or her students. With two years of experience in my hand, I can say that no matter how knowledgeable a teacher is but without good communication and support skills a teacher will not be successful at teaching.

Communication and motivation come hand-in-hand when concerning your students. Communication is a skill that all teachers must have. Whether communicating with the whole class or an individual student, teacher must make his or her message clear and simple. I learned that often communicating directly with a student on a one on one basis solves most of the problems. Speaking privately with the student is crucial especially when dealing with behavioral problems and explaining the consequences. Communicating with parents, staff, and administration is very helpful for gaining additional information on the students and preventing student from failing. It is crucial that parents are aware of their child progress in school and as a teacher I can do that by either calling or sending a letter home. By communication whether it is in the form of teacher to student, teacher to staff, or even teacher to parents you’re enabling a system of support for students. If a student is struggling with classwork, or personal problems outside of school their parents, and administration will be aware of the problem if you have communicated it. By doing this parents will motivate their kids to try harder, possibly making the student himself or herself motivated to work harder and stay for extra help.

Another form of motivation can be support. Outstanding teachers will support their students. A great teacher will never let his or her student fail. Of course that will only happen if the student is willing to work with the teacher. Teacher should not only be available for extra help after school but also find ways to help failing students during class. I can achieve this by making my coursework enjoyable both for struggling and non-struggling students.

Some students find math to be boring, some find it difficult, and some will do anything to get out of their math class. As a teacher I have a responsibility to make math fun and easy, and to motivate those students who have no interest in mathematics. One way to reach this goal would be to differentiate instructions By Exploring all sort of instructions and techniques for teaching my students. Some various techniques used are: Using graphs and chart for visual learners, pairing students in groups so they can work on a difficult problem, having students come up to the board to do sample problems, and giving students opportunity to research and teach, working on projects be it group or single projects

such as Poster please, in which each student creates a poster on a given concept such as an area of a triangle, slope of a line, quadratic function, etc. Other similar projects used for motivation can be creating a DVD cover, picture of piecewise function, and constructing a zoo using geometric shapes.

By tackling the lack of motivation in students using the methods I described above, I hope to remove one of the many problems that face American education today.

Describe the skills or attributes you believe are necessary to be an outstanding teacher.

Every teacher is unique in his or her own ways but all teachers must have certain skills and attributes to be an outstanding teacher. With two years of experience in my hand, I can say that no matter how knowledgeable a teacher is but without good classroom management skills that teacher will not be successful at teaching. This single most important skill is essential to be an outstanding teacher.

Obviously many important factor play a role in good classroom management. We can start by having classroom rules. When composing and explaining these rules to student’s teacher must be fair, firm, and consistent. Rules must be fair to all students, teacher must not change rules, and make sure all students follow same rules. Since rules are bound to be broken there must be consequences for those who break them. Dealing with rule breaker and consequences require another important skill, the ability to be patience and having an understanding. Patience and understanding is needed when dealing with behavioral problems and during teaching a difficult lesson. An outstanding teacher will never yell at a student and will always try to understand the reason for misbehaving and or for breaking a rule.

Since, I have been a teacher without a room for two years. I can say that the ability to be organize is another important skill that falls under the category of classroom management. Moving from a room to room on a cart has taught me that one way to get organize is to have folders for everything (incoming papers, outgoing papers, forms, test and quizzes, student data, etc). Organization skill could be seen both in a classroom and in teaching. Great lesson require organization and structuring from initiation to closure. In mathematics a unit must be organized and structured in such a way that the lesson should build upon one another and flow smoothly to next topic.

Communication is a skill that all teachers must have. Whether communicating with the whole class or an individual student, teacher must make his or her message clear and simple. I

learned that often communicating directly with student on one on one basis solves most of the problems. Speaking privately with the student is crucial especially when dealing with behavioral problems and explaining the consequences. Communicating with parents, staff, and administration is very helpful for gaining additional information on the students and preventing student from failing. It is crucial that parents are aware of their child progress in school and as a teacher I can do that by either calling or sending a letter home.

Some students find math to be boring, some find it difficult, and some will do anything to get out of their math class. An outstanding teacher has a responsibility to make math fun and easy, and to motivate those students who was no interest in mathematics. One way to reach this goal would be to differentiate instructions. Outstanding teacher explore all sort of instructions and techniques for teaching their students. Some various techniques used by outstanding teachers are: Using graphs and chart for visual learners, pairing students in groups so they can work on a difficult problem, having students come up to the board to do sample problems, and giving students opportunity to research and teach.

One important attribute of an outstanding teacher is that they give their students immediate test results and provide feedback on their progress. Even though students should know where they stand in term of their grade it is important that teacher must provide feedback to students. It helps students realize their mistakes and give them the opportunity to do better. Having immediate test results is particularly useful because students are anxious to know their grade. Prolonging the test results decrease the excitement and students are less likely to make corrections as they might have moved on to new topic.

One last attribute that I would like to mention is that outstanding teachers support their students. A great teacher will never let his or her student fail. Of course that will only happen if the student is willing to work with the teacher. Teacher should not only be available for extra help after school but also find ways to help failing students during class. <<already corrected before.

Classroom management

Ability to be organize.

Patience and Understanding

Dealing with behavior problems

A supportive for students who are failing

Motivator

Communication

Structure lesson

Differentiating instructions

Immediate test results and feed back

2. How would you address a wide range of skills and abilities in your classroom?

To address a wide range of skills and abilities in my classroom, first each child needs to be assessed through naturalistic, informal or structured activities. Once you assess the child, you will know what psychologist Lev Vyhotsky refers to as the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Teachers use the ZPD to know where the child is, this Can help decide what steps should be taken to assist that child to the next level through different activities. In the classroom, Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences should be applied, because each child has a different learning style. Gardner identified eight intelligences.

First, to understand a wide range of skills and abilities in my classroom, I assess my students using various forms of assessments. I use paper and pen based assessments, authentic assessments, projects, and hands on activities to identify the skills and abilities of my students. Other methods for recognizing skills and abilities of my students are through questioning during lessons, checking student

notebooks once a quarter, analyzing homework and classwork done by students, and speaking to past and current teachers of my students. Once the learning style of each student is determined, I keep a file for each class and group students according to their learning style. This information is particularly useful when planning for lessons. For example, if the majority of my students are visual learners then I use concrete objects such as graphs, diagrams, and similar visual cues to help them understand the concepts.

One way of differentiating instructions is breaking the lessons into two or three parts. I start with direct instructions, which leads onto students performing individual activities, or small group projects. When assigning students to a group, I make sure that each group contains students from a different learning style. If I notice that some of my students are falling behind or recently has failed a test or quiz then I pull those student aside to form a group and work on the skills that they have missed while the rest of the class works on assigned classwork. Sometimes I let one of my students who are doing very well in class help struggling students.

One particular activity that I use with my students is called pass the pen. Pass the pen is a great way to involve all students and is very useful when working on multistep problems such as solving multistep linear equations. I call a student to come up to the board and ask that student to do only the first step of the problem. The student can choose to group like terms or to rewrite the linear equation so it looks more organized. Once the first step is done, that student can ask any one of their classmates to come up to the board and do the next step of that problem. If a student is not sure how to do the next step of the problem then they can ask another student to come up to the board and show them how to do the next step. This activity is helpful for students with different skills and ability levels. I have noticed that students not only enjoy this activity but also learn by seeing their classmates do the problem on the board.

Not all students perform well on paper and pen based assessments. To assess different learners, I often let my students create hands on projects such as poster please. Poster please is a project where each student creates a poster on a given concept such as an area of a triangle, slope of a line, quadratic function, etc. Students are given a rubric to follow which guides them on how to create poster please. Students must describe their concepts using written form and visual form such as providing a graph or chart, along with written material explaining the graph or chart. They must also provide examples that others can follow, and give real life applications of their concepts. I have used other similar projects such as creating a DVD cover, picture of piecewise function, and constructing a zoo using geometric shapes.

Visual/Spatial - Involves visual perception of the environment, the ability to create and manipulate mental images, and the orientation of the body in space. Verbal/Linguistic - Involves reading, writing, speaking, and conversing in one's own or foreign languages.

Bodily/Kinesthetic

3. List any additional information which will help in determining your professional qualifications for a position.