REFLECTION ESSAY

Vision "To enshrine educational excellence, where culture and tradition are honored, and everyone is safe. Students attending the schools will become internationally minded, global citizens, possessing the skills and character to thrive in a challenging and changing world.”

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Mission "To provide a trusting and supportive school community, in which students are placed at the center of learning, developing personal responsibility and self-discipline, as they become independent and creative learners and thinkers. Teaching will be inspiring, and all students empowered to succeed within an innovative culture of high expectations, high standards, and outstanding quality.” (Bokelman, 2012).

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As an educator for the 21st-century learners, my role is to create a constructivist learning environment which focuses on the students rather than the teachers. The learning environment shouldn’t focus on the teachers as a source of giving knowledge while students are seating behind their desks. In constructivist model students are active and involved in their own process of learning. Students get the chance to ask questions, investigate, and use a variety of technology resources to find solutions. As students explore, they get to draw a conclusion and they continue to explore, they will revisit those conclusions which will lead to more questions and more conclusions and that is the process that makes students grow personally and academically. (Newman, n.d.)

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Emphasizing on learning through social iterations and the value placed on the cultural background is a great deal. As Vygotsky stated that culture gives students the cognitive tools needed for development. In social constructivist classrooms, collaborative learning is a process of peer interaction that is mediated and structured by the teacher. It focuses on collaboration and the importance of culture and social context.  Learning is not just a process of intaking knowledge, it is about the process by which learners were integrated into the knowledge community. Knowledge is actively constructed & learning is presented as a process of active discovery. In constructivist learning environment focuses on students growth and high order thinking skill will result in 21st-century learners who are ready to solve problems, innovate and design the unknown future. (Newman, n.d.)

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My philosophy is to provide assistance to students who are reluctant to give up their ideas and may reject any new information that challenges their prior knowledge. As a constructivist educator, I believe that students must feel safe question and reflect on their own process and experience. Implementing technology in daily activities in the class may face a lot of resist form parents and teachers. The goal is not to prove to any of the parties that they are wrong, on the other hand, the goal is to prove to them that the techniques they believe in are correct and works well to develop students knowledge but those techniques are not matching the 21st-century learner's requirement. In professional development workshop the different between learners now and 10 years ago can help the reluctant parties to get a glimpse of what collaboration technology can achieve. It helps expand access to education globally, support learners with weakness without feeling left out and encourage students to engage and express their interests. Technology extends student learning beyond the walls of the classroom and make learning relative. For example, a student who is not understanding the point of learning about the percentage in my class, I support those students by introducing tools such as percentage calculator or how to calculate percentages, etc. Plus, as an educator you need to explain to those students why they are learning about percentages and how is it going to help them outside the classroom. In those situations, the creativity of an educator is needed. So, I start by explaining to them by giving examples of the black Friday sales and giving them scenarios such as if they got a gift in Christmas of 100 dollars and they want to buy sneaker or suit or dress and the price for the item is 345 dollars how much should the sale percentage be so that they can purchase it. That is when I see the light in my student's eyes when they get excited about learning because they understood how such a topic can affect their life outside of the classroom. (Healy, 2018)

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The frustration in a classroom is having students to accept differences. Each student has different background and culture that other students can benefit from. Having multiple students with different background can create a collaborative environment where students can learn from each other. The issue sometimes is that students are not open-minded to listen or interact with other culture that doesn’t align with their expectations. The challenge is to help those students grow academically and personally so that they can accept others.  Another challenge is in creating a classroom community that helps the students to promote diversity and talents. Everyone must get the chance to interact and express their thoughts. Designing activities that are suitable for everyone are also challenging because no student should feel left out of the learning process. Everyone in the class must be engaged and excited to learn something new. All students should be aware of other cultures and respect them even if they don’t agree with their beliefs. Spreading kindness between students will go long way with them beyond the classroom walls. Other concern is getting everyone in the learning environment engaged and interested in the context of the material. The process of teaching and learning must innovate the students to learn, explore and understand why things occur the way they do. I always make sure to give students a chance to explore and thrive by themselves and in case they need assistance I will be there to support.

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The relationship between me & my peers is very cooperative. We all are seeking to create an outstanding environment for students through collaborative curriculum, that includes STEAM and project-based learning.  Currently, my peers and I every week to discuss how we can integrate the material of our different subject in one and delivery it for students. For example, as a math teacher the curriculum has a lesson about ratio and promotions, so the science teacher and I decided to integrate the math lesson with the science lesson about nutrition, where students get to use the math concepts to determine the correct amount of nutrition their parent or siblings need. Plus, students get to use nutrition facts application on their phone that gives them the about of nutrition in food. Those type of integration is our goal as teachers in the school. The administration of the school is a firm believer of investing in students knowledge. They push us to focus on creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration to build the future generation.

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Technology is everywhere in education now, it prompts collaboration and enhances interaction with classmates and instructors. Technology is integrated into all of the subjects in school, for each topic students get introduced to the new technological tool that they can use to collaborate their learning. Learning is dependent on the pedagogical approaches used in the classroom. The effectiveness of pedagogy often depends on the particular subject, and on understanding the diverse needs of different learners in the classroom and the surrounding context. Using technology in the classroom on daily basis will lead to effective pedagogy that will help students to achieve markable results in their academic journey, achieve acquisition of technical skills and ability to contribute to society. Teacher, Lerner or learning-centered pedagogy are all effective approaches, but it depends on the target students, the subject and on the goal to be achieved. The goal is always to incorporate teaching and learning materials with technology to build opportunities for a student to experiment and navigate through the knowledge. (team, n.d.)

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 If we look around now social media is playing a huge impact on everyone's lives. Students can’t stay away from their phones for 30 min to focus on classroom lesson. As a teacher, I never try to fight those strong tools even if it has disadvantages that are emerging more than its advantages. In the other hand, what I do is I participate with them and make sure their social media is full of useful resource. For example, I send my students snaps on snapchat to remind them of due dates or assessment topics or overview of a topic. I created a page on Facebook where students must share post and information from other pages that are beneficial to our class and can benefit their classmate and they will be graded for it as part of their participation. As teachers and leaders for the upcoming generation, we should make sure not to stand on their way, we should support and assess students in using technology to benefit their growth.

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Technology is a weapon that can move you along the leader of success or drop you to the bottom. It is my job as an educator to make sure that technology is affecting my student's life appropriate way that aligns with their ethic, culture and religion background. Technology contributes to the learning environment in different ways such as making long distance short, supporting digitization, critical thinking, and collaboration. So as educators lets use this weapon to our side to build 21st-century learners who are capable of leading the world.

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References:

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1) Bokelman, D. (2012). Retrieved from Al Dhafra provate school: https://www.dhafraschools.com/

2) Healy, M. (2018). What Does a Teacher Do? . Retrieved from Teach make a difference:       https://teach.com/what/

3) Newman, J. H. (n.d.). Constructivism and Social Constructivism in the Classroom. Retrieved from Open Educational Resources of UCD Teaching and Learning, University College Dublin: http://www.ucdoer.ie/index.php/Education_Theory/Constructivism_and_Social_Constructivism_in_the_Classroom

4) team, L. P. (n.d.). Effective and appropriate pedagogy. Retrieved from Planning education for improved learning outcomes: http://www.ucdoer.ie/index.php/Education_Theory/Constructivism_and_Social_Constructivism_in_the_Classroom