The two artifacts that I am proud of are: the survey I handed out to my students and my journal.
I have always been a very outgoing and friendly person. So, I knew that teaching would be a great career for me. I can talk for hours and never get bored with a conversation. I have always thought of myself as a great communicator. Not only do I talk very well, I am a great listener and am always open to new ideas.
I chose these two things because the survey that I handed out to my students for them to fill out, reflects on characteristic #2- The novice teacher should be an effective communicator. These two go together because I am getting to know my students more than just simply talking to them in the classroom. I wanted to hand out a survey for them to fill out so I can get to know them on a more personal level without being invasive and possibly embarrassing them by sitting with them in the middle of class and asking them what their favorite music was. Not all students respond that well to a teacher sitting with them and just having a conversation with them. Some students think that is "uncool".
No matter what has happened throughout the day, I always sit down and reflect on what I was thankful for during the day, and what I could have done differently. If something is upsetting me, I always reflect on that certain situation and think of ways that I can improve it or if there was anything I could do to fix it.
Characteristic #9 - The novice teacher should be a reflective practitioner. Being a reflective practitioner is a great quality to have in a teacher. An artifact that I am very proud of for this characteristic is my journal. I take very detailed notes and reflections at the end of each teaching day. Somedays, all I have is praise for the day and the students and other days, I am upset by a few things that have happened but never let it show to my students or my teacher and I just simply write it down and reflect on why I was upset and what I could have done differently. If I don't have time to write down what happened that day right after I'm done teaching, I make a voice memo to myself so that I won't forget what happened and important things to say.
I think that both of these characteristics go hand in hand because, you can't have good reflections if you are not communicating with the students to find out what is going on with them and their learning. Both of these are very important to become a great educator.
