Entry Nine

     I've decided to continue working towards becoming a professional teacher. I feel I've come to learn much more about what teachers do and what is expected of them. I really respect teachers who put in the effort to fulfill their roles and even go the extra mile for their students to make it an enjoyable experience for them to learn and to grow academically and as a person. Especially my Service Learning teacher, during my hours with her I feel I've learned a lot from her from my time spent in her classroom this semester.
     I feel that this is the career path for me because I really enjoyed getting to work with the kids, mainly one-on-one, and try to help them to succeed. I just loved getting to see their excitement whenever they accomplished their goals. So I would definitely have to say that Service Learning has helped to influence my decision. I just loved the time I got to spend in the classroom and see what teaching is like and gain ideas, or techniques, that I would like to use in my own classroom one day.
     My next steps would have to be to work on strengthening my weaknesses to help me to become a better teacher one day. I do struggle with being shy and I have been trying to work on overcoming it. I feel that I am slowly making progress and that Service Learning has helped me to overcome some of my shyness and helped me to open up a little more these past few months. Finally, another step would be to get the most I can out of my classes for the next two years, as I am going to be starting the Elementary Program, so that I can apply what I learn to better help my students to succeed academically and help them to have a happy and successful future of their own.

Entry Eight

     I feel that I have been making connections between course topics and my Service Learning. It's been helpful to take what I've been learning online and actually observe it in a classroom. I've also noticed when I am learning and when I understand what I'm learning due to the many online recourses throughout the course and the experience that Service Learning has given me.

    Blogging has been helpful to make connections between what I have been learning and seeing within a classroom. It's helped me to think more and to actually look for the connections. Finally, I feel that one area of learning that I've had since the first post is having a greater understanding of how important it is to have your classroom be an engaging learning environment, that students feel safe both physically and emotionally within the classroom, and to have multiple recourse, or teaching strategies, because students don't all learn the same.