2. What is the greatest challenge you expect to encounter in raising student achievement in a high-need school? What do you believe would be your role, as a teacher, in addressing this challenge? Explain how your past experience informs your response to these questions. If applicable, please include personal, work, or volunteer experience with high-need communities. 400-600 words
Based on my experiences as a student and a peer in high-need classrooms, the greatest obstacle I expect to encounter as I raise student achievement in a high-need school would be overcoming disengagement due to lack of a personalized lesson plan. Observing an attitude of presumed failure in my brother's educational experiences and recollecting my own disenchantment due to the absence of challenge, portrays commonalities contributing to the achievement gap. Both circumstances lacked personal instruction, left us feeling lost in the crowd, progressing into a lack of ownership in our own educational endeavors. In order to tackle this challenge, I will assess and adapt to each students level of content mastery. I will design lesson plans that engage every student and establish clear milestones for their academic progress.
My older brother had measurable learning disabilities as a young child. By the time he had entered high school, he had become so hardened by his inability to process materials in the manner presented that he withdrew in defeat, literally running from school never to return. Addressing these deficits is difficult and time consuming. As a substitute teacher I witnessed instructors overwhelmed with the varying skills sets present in the classroom. Too often this compounding issue is ignored; the teacher continues to introduce new material, hoping that students will strengthen their base skills independently. As exemplified with my brother, this approach causes frustration and compounds insecurity.
From my experience as a junior high and high school student, I exemplified that many students in a high-need demographic are initially enthusiastic about learning, but find that they can be get good grades by only skimming through the material. As a student, I felt like my abilities were not acknowledged and wouldn't amount to anything. I disengaged by opting to attend an Independent Study program.
To acquire a balance where all students are challenged requires a component of one-on-one guidance. As a teacher, I will set high expectations for all students, knowing that all students can and will achieve in their classroom. With clear, written-out objectives, my personalized lesson plans let students know what they are learning and what is expected of them. Assignments will be imbedded with learning goals to give students ample opportunity to practice new skills.
As a teacher, each lesson plan I design would have short-term and long-term goals. In the short term, each lesson plan would engage the entire classroom. Fostering collaboration with other students with varying skill levels will heighten intellectual engagement amongst students. I would encourage students to simultaneously seek out assistance from their peers where they need help as well as serve as a resource for subjects in which they feel comfortable. Also I would provide multiple paths to demonstrating content knowledge, enabling all learning styles to excel. This could be traditional form like completing a test or writing a paper, or a nontraditional medium such as designing a model, or presenting a self-directed YouTube video. To attach value to material content, I would provide problems on subjects relevant to students' interests and provide real-life examples of implementation.
In the long term, my aim is to gradually bolster the base interdisciplinary skills through a continuing process of strengthening individual skills in specific lessons, moving from highly structured and guided assignments at the beginning of the term, to free form, inquiry-based projects by the end. My goal is to strengthen those skills so that they will be part of their lifelong skill set.
Based on my experiences as a student and a peer in high-need classrooms, the greatest obstacle I expect to encounter as I raise student achievement in a high-need school would be overcoming disengagement due to lack of a personalized lesson plan.
This sentence seems to be a bit too long.... longer the sentence, the more it get the reader to remember details... that's not very appealing for the reader : )
Better rephrase this one!
Observing an attitude of presumed failure in my brother's educational experiences and recollecting my own disenchantment due to the absence of challenge, portrays commonalities contributing to the achievement gap.
Again.... this a bit confusing... I think you need to attend to it!
