Final course reflection

 

Image by Dayana Mendez

I truly believe that as we approach the end of any endeavor that we commit to for a period of time, whether personal or in this case academical it is important to reflect on the impact it had on us since we invest material resources and the most precious thing we have which is time.  Because of that, I was really pleased when we were asked to write this final reflection in which I’ll have the opportunity to mention the main areas that impacted me throughout the course, the way I see technology after all I learned, and the things that I found most rewarding.

 

The main thing I learned and will definitely continue practicing in my teaching is balance. I learned that being a teacher these days is significantly less challenging than it was even a decade ago, we have a variety of resources that allow us to be creative and unlimited access to make our lessons more interesting but at the same time, that abundance of tools and resources can become overwhelming since as much as we would like to make each and every class unique and engaging teachers cannot dedicate all their time outside of the class to prepare. Teacher Jonathan helped us strike that balance between taking advantage of all resources but in a smart and time efficient way providing resources that automate or standardize certain aspects of the teaching process which help us save time.

 

I have always seen technology as a helper for my teaching but since I haven’t yet practiced in a professional setting I haven’t dedicated much time to build a collection of trustful resources to use. Fortunately, during this course, we were provided with several different tools that actually make teaching better and provide the creative support that as teacher we sometimes need when we ran out of ideas, for example with questions generators, or creation of video content. Now I see technology not as complicated and time-consuming way of giving my lessons but as an effective way to keep my students engaged and specially in online settings give them the freedom to work on their own but still be able to monitor their learning.

 

For me the most rewarding project during the class was to create the Full mid term test since it required a lot of dedication and it made me realize one of the most difficult aspects of teaching is evaluating the students effectively and making sure they are acquiring knowledge which requires you to create tests that are just right for their level, not too difficult but not too easy.

 

As a teacher I will try to make a difference by not only incorporating different technological resources that allow my students to explore their creative side but also keep them interested in the lessons by always going beyond the lessons and ask them for their opinion or share things they like, as I believe students get more excited about class when they share something they are interested in or their opinion is taken into account which is not something many teacher do in my experience as a student.

 

Any institution that I work for can guarantee their students that the lessons will be not only engaging but purposeful. I would like to create my lessons in a way that students themselves will take full advantage of the resources I share with them and create something with them just as I have developed my own portfolio.

This leads me to mention the most valuable piece of knowledge I take from this course, which is that having a final tangible product at the end of a course is a really rewarding feeling so I will definitely try to apply that in my own teaching and hopefully my students will be appreciative and content with their learning journey.