So far, I’m finding my experience in the college positive. It was a major adjustment coming from work in a microbiology lab and my previous degree to education. The courses are more informal and high concept and I felt a little unmoored without specific facts and systems to learn, but I think that that has been good for me as a person and as a learner. I’ve had to increase my confidence in stating my opinion, the ultimate science taboo, and discuss qualitative concepts in much more depth then I ever have before.

It’s very interesting to see the differences in courses, professors, and teacher candidates because everyone has their own take. I’ve had some frustrations with courses being a little wishy-washy, repeating similar concepts with single cumulative, loosely defined assessments. But there was still value in the differing perspectives and experiences that they brought to the table. You can still learn more about a concept if you look through a different lens with different people. I do feel a significant improvement in my understanding of the language and conventions of education as a profession and I hope that as I’ve completed these introductory courses I will have deeper understanding in the future readings and the like, now that I know exactly what they’re talking about.

I’m still very happy to pursue teaching as a career. I think that’s the advantage of coming into it after having experiences in schools and working in another career beforehand. I’ve gotten very positive feedback on my planning and flexibility so I hope those skills will support me while I catch up on my deep understanding. I’m so happy to use the new concepts and philosophies that I’m being exposed to and think back to my previous experiences with students. I can see what they teachers were doing with their classes, why some of my planned activities did not work, and hopefully how to better certain classroom management problems more effectively.

I appreciate having more professional direction through curriculum, differentiated instruction, and effective assessment. Now when I think to what my own classroom might look like and my own lessons I have a much better picture and framework than I did before. This gives me even greater confidence and excitement towards my future as a teacher.