Individual Learning Plan

Activity 1: Individual Learning Plan (ILP)

I went into teaching to make a difference in students’ lives. It is a life goal of mine that in 15 or 20 years I will have former students come back to visit me and tell me that I had a positive impact on their lives. That is what I focus on every day as I teach.

My Perception of Teaching

I am not just teaching my students about Ancient Rome, Astronomy, and how to do multiplication. I teach life skills. These are skills they need to be successful adults in our society. I know that all the teachers around the world, myself included, are creating and fostering the next generation of world leaders. Even if I am having a bad day, or one of my students is having a bad day, I just think about the greatness they can become if I continue to push them. So while I am teaching them the difference between similes an metaphors, I am really teaching them social skills, how to focus and concentrate, how to think critically, how to be imaginative, how to love reading and learning, how to have self discipline, and how to be responsible.

   

My Perception of Student Learning

In many teaching job interviews, administrators ask how we as teachers will address the issue of diversity in our classrooms. To this I reply that diversity does not only have to do with your skin tone and your culture. Every single student is diverse. In any given lesson I might be differentiating my instruction 25 different ways to meet my students’ needs. Every student learns differently and that is what makes teaching a real challenge. Each child that comes through my classroom brings with them a completely different set of personal experiences, beliefs, and attitudes towards school that I have to learn and be able to work with. I try very hard to get to know my students so that I am able to teach them how they need to be taught in order for them to be successful.

How I Implement my Philosophy in my Classroom

I work very hard at the beginning of the year, and throughout the year as well, to create a comfortable and safe classroom climate. As a teacher, I need to know about students’ backgrounds and personal beliefs before I can teach and differentiate for them effectively. Students need to feel comfortable in school before they will show this side of themselves and, to quote Ms. Frizzle, take chances, make mistakes, and get messy. My students and I have a lot of discussion in class about respect and what it means to respect their teachers, their classmates, and themselves. 

How I Address my Growth as a Teacher

How can I expect my students to be life long learners if I myself am not a life long learner? I love to learn new things and I am always on a path to gain new knowledge about teaching and about any topic that interests me. All of my free time is spent reading professional texts to make myself a better teacher, non-fiction texts about topics I am interested in, and reading just for fun to expand my imagination. I model my love of reading and learning for my students every day. I am always looking for new professional development opportunities, whether that is conferences to attend, weekend classes, or this masters program. Also, I am always asking for help. I truly believe that two heads are better than one. The four teachers on my team can come up with better lessons and ideas than I could by myself. 

My Reasons for Taking the Instructional Technology Program

Technology has always been a topic of interest for me. I have always been intrigued by the new developments the field has made and how I could implement those ideas into my classroom. At the school I currently work at, we have a full time technology specialist (in addition to the technology teacher) and I have really enjoyed getting to work with her and help her implement all of our technology resources throughout the school. Because I have been working so closely with our technology specialist, many other teachers now come to me with technology questions they have. I really enjoy getting to be a resource for those teachers. Growing my knowledge of technology will only help me be a better resource to them in the future.

My Individualized Teaching Goals, Desired Personal Learning Goals, and Outcomes of This Program

My professional goal this year is to increase student engagement in my classroom, and increase my recognition of student engagement by using technology in new and innovative ways. Additionally, I want to gather information of how to think about technology in different ways and be able to share it with the other teachers at my school.

Indicators for Determining my Success in Meeting my Personal Outcomes and Learning Goals

This is not only my personal teaching goal this year. It is also my administrator evaluation goal. So I will be meeting with my administration throughout the year to discuss how I am working towards this goal. My indication that I am achieving this goal is that I will receive marks from my administrator of Satisfactory or Very Good in the Student Engagement category on my evaluation rubric. I will also be sharing what I learn with my school technology team at our meetings every month.

This is a Wordle word cloud of my ILP: Philosophy of Teaching from above: