Inspirational Thoughts

Introduction and Goal Setting

Hello All! My name is Breanna Blecha and I am a senior at Illinois State University. I am currently studying Early Childhood Education with an ESL endorsement and Special Education Letter of Approval. I have known since a very young age that I wanted to be a teacher, but my final decision was made my sophomore year in high school when I had the opportunity to work in a lab preschool at my high school. I loved the creative nature of children and I always felt as though they are such talented and intelligent people. I wanted to be able to challenge a child’s ability level and push them past the level of academia that they are given credit for. I will be doing my student teaching in San Antonio, Texas and I am beyond excited to have the opportunity to student teach there. One day, I would like to live somewhere in the south and I figured this would be a great way to experience a new way of life and to see how things are done differently in such a place. I would like to teach kindergarten or first grade, but I would be happy with any grade!

One goal I have is to learn how to properly integrate all subjects into my curriculum in a creative and supportive way. I am aware that common core places a heavy emphasis on Language Arts and Math, but I do not wish to leave behind the practices and valuable lessons students obtain from Social Studies and Science. I would like to find ways to incorporate all subjects creatively and in a way that intrigues my students and keeps them interested.

Another goal I have for this semester is to learn how to make sure that I am meeting common core standards while ensuring that my students comprehend the material. A lot of classroom curriculums have a set schedule of standards they need to meet every day as I learned in my previous clinical. What I fear is that some students will fall behind on the set curriculum and I will be “forced” to move on in accordance with the rest of the school’s curriculum. I would like to learn how to prevent children from falling behind the curriculum this upcoming semester.

A third goal I have for this semester is to learn more about classroom management techniques. At times, the classroom can get hectic and I’ve seen it firsthand on multiple occasions. The teacher is at a loss for what to do as the children take over the classroom. I would definitely like to prevent this from happening and in doing so, would like to control my classroom in a supportive manner rather than yelling or getting frustrated with my students. Another aspect of classroom management I would like to learn more about is time management. I want my students to be able to have their own concept of time management and I would also like to learn more about handling my own schedule. I think at times, it is easy for novice teachers to speed through a lesson out of nervousness or to not plan enough time for a lesson and I would like to work on developing the concept of time management.  

My last goal for this semester is to learn and becoming more familiar with how to integrate technology into my classroom. I would like to take whatever learning objective is on schedule for that day and be able to integrate technology into my lesson. Technology is such a large component of our society and we tend to rely so heavily on it. Children connect with technology and I feel as though they will find lessons more attractive if technology were to be involved. In addition, given the fact that such a substantial amount of people are visual learners, technology is a great visual tool to use in the classroom.