observation material classes

Hernandez 1

Jo-Anne M. Hernandez

Prof. Pratt

INGL 6996

September 15, 2014

Teaching Inspiration: A Philosophy of Education

I believe “Education is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire”. This quote,

arguably attributed to W.B. Yeats, embodies my Teaching Philosophy. To me, students are not

containers, in which teachers pour their knowledge because, ultimately, these containers will fill

to the brim. Teachers must be the ones, which ignite students’ passion for learning and

education. When a fire ignites, it keeps consuming all, which surrounds it, so too a student who

is stimulated to learn will maintain a desire for knowledge through life. As a teacher, I wish to be

an example for my students by demonstrating to them my passion for learning. When educators

demonstrate passion for the subjects they are teaching they make the subjects sound much more

interesting and attractive for students.

My role as a teacher will be to ignite the spark in my students, which will keep growing

throughout their lives. Because I know I am teaching individuals, and not just a group of

unnamed faces, my job is to pay special attention to individual learners and attempt to target

their interest and integrate these interest in my class. From my experience as a learner, I have

seen students learn when they feel comfortable with the teacher and are not intimidated by the

figure of the teacher in the classroom. I aspire to promote a sense of trust with my students, to

make them realize I am not there to intimidate them and tell them what they have to learn

otherwise I will fail them, but to guide them in the learning process. “No one can learn for us”

(Larsen-Freeman), “to learn is our own responsibility” (Larsen-Freeman) yet with the help of a

mentor and guide the road to learning is mapped out for us.

Hernandez 2

As this reflection shows, I promote individual learning, and agree with Paulo Freire’s

critique of Banking Education. As a teacher, I will not posses all the information there is to know

and try to implant all this knowledge into students; Instead, I will promote active learning

because learning is an act, which occurs throughout life, and teacher’s will not always be there to

tell students what exactly is they must learn.

In order to achieve my goal of motivating students to yearning for an education, I plan to

use a variety of methods and approaches, as the situation calls for, because I believe there is no

single way to acquire learning. After evaluating different methods and approaches, I will

implement the ones applicable to the context and interest of my students, in order to achieve

education as effortlessly as possible. I firmly believe “Meaningful work both enlarges students'

knowledge stores and sparks their desire to wield that knowledge.” (Moore, Caitlin). Using

different methods and approaches will help me discover which are the ones, which transmit

knowledge aspiration in my students efficiently.

There are three methods which contain principles I will implement in my classroom,

these are; “The Silent Way”, “Total Physical Response” and “Communicative Language

Teaching”. “The Silent Way” endorses students becoming responsible of their learning; “Total

Physical Response” promotes a stress free environment and “Communicative Language

Teaching” supports student cooperation and communication in their learning process.

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Background Information

During the first week of class, the professor discussed the syllabus and paired students

using the buddy system. The second and third weeks of class were focused on demonstrating the

importance of academic integrity with a lesson on plagiarism and giving a review of the writing

process and the stages of writing. Students learned different pre-writing techniques and took a

workshop on MLA to learn how to format the essays they would be creating. A workshop on

database research was also given to help students find sources of information. This workshop

would promote students to find information after the discussion of the introduction to the

textbook “They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing”, “Entering the

Conversation” and chapter one “They Say: Starting with What Others are Saying”. After this,

students read chapter two “Her Point Is: The Art of Summarizing” and found articles on topics

they were interested in to practice using the templates offered in the book to create summaries.

With the preliminary information from the articles about topics they were interested in, students

read chapter four “As he Himself Puts It: The Art of Quoting” and analyzed the importance of

learning what others are saying and how to be conscious of this as they begins to form their own

opinion regarding a subject. Once they knew background information about their topic they read

chapter four “Yes/No/Ok, But: Three Ways to Respond” and considered what was their opinion

on the topics they had chosen and how they could respond to their topics and finding three

reasons for their response. All of this is done in preparation for the creation of the argument

essay, students learn to identify what people are saying about a topic and begin responding to the

topic and finding support for their response.

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Purpose of Class

The purpose of Monday’s class is to introduce students to the counter argument. Students had

previously learned about supporting their opinion using evidence and now they will learn how to

defend their opinion against people who have a different opinion. It is very important that

students understand that in order to prove their point they need to present both sides of the

situation, people who are in favor of their opinion and people who are against their opinion. Both

sides need to be presented fairly and with evidence and by presenting not just those in favor but

those against them students strengthen their argument because they prove how those people

against them are wrong by bringing in the reasons, along with evidence, explaining why they are

right. To help students understand this, the first part of the class will be a small lecture,

discussing chapter six “Skeptics May Object: Planting a Naysayer in Your Text”. This lecture

will help clarify any doubts students might have regarding the importance of the chapter, and

skeptics, in the creation of their argument essay. After this small lecture the professor will divide

the group into their buddy system. When students are paired together, they will become their

buddy’s naysayer and question each of the three reasons offered by his or her buddy to help

strengthen the buddy’s argument. Evidence of this activity will be demonstrated to the professor

and students will practice presenting their naysayers and their opinions with templates from the

book.

Hernandez 5


Prof. Sefranek

INGL 6996

23 February 2015



















Hernandez 6













knowledge stores and sparks their desire to wield that knowledge.” (Moore). Using different

methods and approaches will help me discover which are the ones, which transmit knowledge

aspiration in my students efficiently.

Hernandez 7


On Monday February 23, 2015, I will begin my poetry unit. During the first month of

class I reviewed the writing process and since many of the students in my class are the same ones

from last semester who had learned the process with me already I proceeded to teach them

comparison and contrast essays. I choose the fairy tale of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ to compare

or contrast how the story has evolved through time and how the themes are still discussed in

literature to this day. After discussing the stories, I proceeded to teach them the different forms

of creating a comparison and contrast essay and when we finished this, I gave them a week for

brainstorming, outlining, drafting and peer editing. On Friday February 20, 2015, they will hand

me the essay that comes out of all they have learned throughout the month of February. I divided

the course into three sections for the three essays I have to teach. For the month of March we will

focus on explicating a poem essay, I will first present them to poetry terms in order for them to

understand the poems we will be discussing, and afterwards we will discuss the poems using the

poetry terms. To finish this unit I will explain to them the format of the essay and we will take

time to practice explication of poetry then a week for the writing process of brainstorming,

outlining, drafting and finely handing in the finished product. Each of the units I planned has a

theme or a message behind the stories, fairy tales or poems chosen. For the unit on fairy tales I

wanted them to concentrate on change through time since it is a comparison and contrast essay.

For this next unit on poetry I wanted to focus on how in poetry there is a lot of meaning behind a

small amount of words and how they must learn to unpack this meaning in their explication of

poetry essay.

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Purpose of Class

The purpose of Monday’s class is to introduce students to poetry. Many students tend to dislike

poetry because it tends to be complicated and this was the case for me. I came to appreciate

poetry when I was finally able to understand it. Giving students an introduction to poetry

activity, which is fun, and at the same time enlightening and makes them think deeper and reflect

upon the meaning behind the words will be the purpose of this class. I created this class inspired

on Rodolfo Ramirez’s presentation on teaching poetry in the “We Teach Too” mini congress by

graduate students. In his presentation, Rodolfo gave two poems and asked his audience to draw

what they felt the poems meant without using direct drawings of the elements, which appear in

the poem. After this he received feedback on what the audience thought the poem meant going

beyond the direct elements featured in the poem, that is reading between the lines looking for

deeper meaning. I will begin the class discussion opening up with asking students what they

think of poetry and having them write down what words pop up when they hear the word poetry.

After this, I will project a poem and have students read the poem and take out a sheet of paper

and draw what they think the poem means without using the direct drawings. After receiving

feedback from students, I will explain to them how in this new unit we will begin they have to

think deeper and read searching for meaning beyond the apparent meaning of the poems we will

be reading because they will be short but their meaning has more to it than their short

appearance.

Hernandez 9


Prof. Sandra Rios

INGL 6996

October 19, 2015





















Hernandez 10











knowledge stores and sparks their desire to wield that knowledge.” (Moore, Caitlin). Using

different methods and approaches will help me discover which are the ones, which transmit

knowledge aspiration in my students efficiently.

Hernandez 11


After giving reflective essays to warm up students into the writing process during the

month of August, in September, they were given lessons on how to write informative essays and

all the information necessary to create essays with proper use of MLA and which are well

supported with evidence. By giving them all the information necessary to write effective essays

the rest of the lessons on the different essay types flow smother and more effectively. Now that

students are familiar with MLA, proper citation methods and had learned how to research using

the database, they are moving on to argument essays where they can again practice the use of

MLA, proper citations and evidence use, to do so with more ease. On the week prior to the class

observation date, Wednesday to be more specific, they had a quiz on chapter 10 “Writing to

Persuade”, from the book How to Write Anything. After the quiz, the discussion of the chapter

took place. On the next class, Friday to be exact, they received in their course files a pdf with a

list of possible topics for argumentative writing. They also received instructions for the in class

debate, to put in practice debate skills in the classroom. Friday was the day were students choose

the questions they would be debating about on Monday. They would bring information to

support their opinion regarding the chosen questions on Monday as well, to help them have

evidence during their debating. The directions for the debate were discussed clearly and

afterwards the questions were chosen democratically between students.

Hernandez 12

Purpose of Class

The purpose of Monday’s class is to help students learn how to properly support their

opinion with evidence. The questions that will be debated upon were chosen democratically

between students and the position was chosen by alphabetical order, half of the class in favor of

the questions assigned and the other half against it. In the class directions, it clearly specifies that

students must have credible sources to back up their opinions when these are presented during

the debate. It is important that through this debate students observe how other students expose

their point as well as learn to expose those points, which they support. They must learn to do so

in an orderly manner and through the use of this in class debate it is hoped that they will be able

to see this in action and how effective, well documented arguments overcome arguments without

logical reasoning and proper documentation. The point of having chosen without democracy half

of the class in favor and the other against instead of having those students who support or are

against the chosen questions is to have them learn to support an opinion that they might not agree

with and find sources for this opinion. This helps them learn different perspectives instead of just

supporting something they agree with, which tends to be easier. This will also prepare them for

when they find sources for their own essays, where they will be able to support their own

opinions, instead of having this opinion given to support by the instructor.

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