My Vision

The core ideas that influence my teaching is culture and literacy. These ideas regularly drive my vision because it allows me to bridge the gap between my students and learning.

One of the biggest influences on my teaching principles comes directly from the culture diversity of the student population. Multicultural awareness requires different strategies in order to reach different population of children. Exploring and learning diversity can benefit everyone in the classroom. When a classroom embraces diversity, both students and teachers, will learn more about each other, like norms and tendencies. Being culturally aware allows the teacher to create a classroom where students feel safe and will not be discriminated against. Creating this safe space, allows the students to be engaged and want to continue going to your classroom.  Students will learn about themselves, their peers, and the teacher when the classroom is culturally responsive in a positive manner. 

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​ Understanding the student’s culture allows for a more direct connection and enhances the student’s abilities to learn. For example, the teacher must always look at the demographics of the surrounding community. The demographics can tell you a lot about the student population and adversities they may face. You can use demographics to tailor your lesson plans in a manner that students will react in a positive way. I try and incorporate different learning strategies for every lesson to try to enhance the student learning experience. I always try and relate the lesson to their own lives because it allows for the student to connect previous knowledge with new knowledge. In my previous field experiences, when the teacher has been culturally aware of her student needs, this helped her be able to focus more on enhancing different techniques that will help their learning. She would assign them experiments that would help the students reflect back to their lives and their communities.I believe that being culturally responsive and culturally aware is an important attribute for a teacher to have because it will form deeper connections with your students and the classroom

Literacy has a lasting effect on the social and academic lives of students. “Literacies are reading, writing, and reflecting. Literacies help us to make sense of our world and to do something about it.” (Wink p. 70) Literacy is multilayered and includes a set of skills that enables students to shape their lives both in and out of the classroom. I try and incorporate several literacies in my lessons so that it can enhance the learning towards my students. I like to incorporate a digital, visual, game, civic, and a foundational component in every lesson I plan. The complexity of incorporating multiple literacies, allows students to learn material in different mediums. This helps trigger curiosity in students and helps build upon previously learned knowledge. Every student learns differently but incorporating different types of literacies into your lesson helps support different learning styles and can result in a positive effect on student engagement.

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​As teachers, we must make sure that we want the best for our students. There are an abundant of different ideas and practices that can influence our teaching. These two principles had a direct influence on my teaching vision.  Being culturally aware of your student needs, will help you create a safe classroom and form deeper connections. Literacy will allow your students to learn skills that they will be able to use outside of your classroom. These two principles will help teachers make sure that students are both successful in and out of the classroom.