My Understanding Of The Career Path

The experiences, ideas, and observations I participated in while taking this course gave me a better understanding of the career path I am pursing. This course was such a learning experience into all the aspects of the education field that happen inside of the traditional classroom. In the duration of this course I’ve learned the importance of the teacher, the administration, and the parent in the classroom. This course gave me the opportunity to gain sixty hours of classroom experience. At first this seemed like a large number, but as each day past I was actually saddened my time in the class was coming to an end. I had to leave my comfort zone and I now have my foot in the door in another district. I met so many people that may benefit me finding a job in the future, and without this course these relationships would not have formed. I spent a large majority of my sixty hours in a fourth grade collaborated classroom. …show more content…
This allowed me to see the importance of balance in an educational setting. In the classroom I observed in there was students on all ends of the spectrum. The main challenge for my observing teacher was keeping her gifted students fulfilled while keeping her other students up to par. I also got to spend some times with the students and with their families. I learned the importance of the school 's administration and just how many interactions they have with classroom teachers. The district did an excellent job with incorporating their higher level staff into the classroom. This took away much of the anxiety that I had towards my future bosses being ranked so much higher than myself. I tutored students in a after school program and they recepted my help thoroughly, this boosted my confidence that this is what I am meant to do with my life. The most entertaining aspect of my sixty hours was volunteering to go on a field trip with my class. It was great to see a school that loves students enough to focus on making them so happy, even outside of school hours. Throughout all my experiences I learned a lot of new and valuable information for my career. Education is about mainly about the teacher and the content presented, however so many other aspects go into a successful classroom environment. People were also an important aspect of making this course go round as well. I’m very grateful that you had us communicate to each other in the student lounge setting. This is one of the only online classes I have taken where I have felt so connected to my fellow students. I know the main purpose of an online course is the concept of independent learning, but it was nice to build these relationships. I loved the concept of the student lounge because there were no guidelines to what had to be said. It was interesting to see how other students were doing not only in their coursework but also how they were balancing school and their everyday lives. I also loved how much help I was offered in these sessions too. I work long hours at my day job and sometimes I would feel like giving up until I logged on and saw I wasn’t alone in the stress. I saw students who were balancing three jobs, a husband, and some who even had children of their own to raise. This gave me a sense of motivation to keep going throughout all the odds stacked against me