Introduction to Student Teaching and Dispositions Reflection - NEVIN LENERS

Introduction to Student Teaching
My name is Nevin Leners and I am a non-traditional student working on becoming an Educator, focusing on High School Science. This endeavor is my Fourth venture into higher Education, after having careers in Banking, Investing, Geological survey and Natural Resource Mining. After having multiple mentors encourage me to redirect my life toward a career in Education, I decided to delve into the world of Teaching. Throughout this process I have gained much knowledge and experience within this field; however, at no time have I had more on the Job learning and constant refining of my skills then during this Spring semester.
The beginning of 2021 found me starting the final phase of my Education Preparation program as a Student Teacher posted within the Science department at Highland High School. Highland High School is in the city of Ault; a small rural school in Weld County Colorado about Twenty minutes’ drive East of Fort Collins. Highland High School has a majority rural Student population, with many of these children’s families being involved in Agriculture. I, myself, grew up on a farm not far from Highland High School and because of this, I was able to have a great connection with many of this Students who share this common background. During this process, Brooke Cope was my assigned Mentor Teacher; a fact of which I was very thankful of, especially in that she proved to be a wealth of knowledge about Teaching in this given subject. Mrs. Cope and I worked famously together in the Science lab of this small school and we have built a very good working relationship over the past few months. The unfortunate situation for this Semester was that Mrs. Cope and I had to put off the initial building of this working relationship for the better part of January, when she was asked to quarantine herself at home because of issues of Covid-19.
Because of this separation and the fact that Weld School District RE-9 was dedicated to keeping students in class this spring and avoiding remote learning situations, I was thrust into the role as a full-fledged Teacher on January 2nd, the first day of class. Mrs. Cope was informed of her need to quarantine during our Teacher In-service work day January 1st and went home at Noon that very same day. I will always remember this experience very vividly throughout my career in that I was forced to learn many lessons within a very short amount of time and be thrust into the role of full time teacher much sooner than I had expected. However, I was meet with a tremendous about of support from not only Mrs. Cope at distance, but the rest of the Staff at Highland High School, to find my way early on and make it through the first awkward steps into my Student Teaching experience. This experience, albeit stressful, gave me a terrific opportunity to grow my Teacher skill set and develop abilities I had needed to improve upon. Though this undertaking, I was able to better understand how to be adaptable, quick on my feet, professional and above all, build relationships quickly.
My biggest source of confidence and support came from Principal Randy Yaussi, from whom I gained much wisdom and understanding, along with building another great professional relationship in the School. The Students at Highland High School were very kind and forgiving with me those first three weeks of ‘flying solo’ and fortunately for me, I made no egregious mistakes that would cause havoc for these kids and their learning. Mrs. Cope’s classes are a range of first year Biology, Earth Science and a newer class type called Natural Resources. It was in this class that I tended to shine because of my background in Geology, Mining and Petroleum production. There were a few cases of problematic student behavior during class this Spring, and on the whole my Students are very well behaved. I was pleased to make great connections with a vast majority of the nearly 80 Children amongst these class sections. Upon her Return, Mrs. Cope reacquired the Biology classes but left me to the Earth Science and Natural Resources courses to finish out the remaining months. This worked very well in that I was given more time to do planning during the day and had a chance to review my performance during these sporadic breaks between my classes. The most difficult part of this semester for me has been the week and a half I had to take off due to my Father being in the hospital. During the last weeks of my Student Teaching cycle, at the end of April, he suffered a Stroke and a Pulmonary Embolism that nearly took his life. My Father and I are very close and it was nearly unbearable to see him suffer as much as he did, although, I have never felt such a degree of support and caring from a workplace in all my 39 years. I had an enormous outpouring from the Highland High Staff and the Student body as well which was perhaps the kindest display I have yet seen for someone in my position.
It warmed my heart to no end that these individuals whom I had only known for a few months had such a high level of kindness and support for me and my family. It was already in my heart to strive for a position within this School before this event had occurred in my family; however, after all the phone calls, letters, notes, texts and emails from everyone at Highland High School, I knew that I wanted to make this place my career home. I knew that I must have done something very right this Spring semester to have built such connections. I was thrilled when I returned back to class, in that I was informed that the District was very interested in keeping me there as a full time Teacher this next School year. As this School year comes to a close, I think back on the experiences I have had and all the lessons I have learned, and I am very grateful for these stressful times that have shaped my development and growth. These did come at the cost of a few more grey hairs and some sleepless nights, but in the end I am all the better for them. I can speak honestly in saying that I was extremely fortunate to be placed in the location I was given for Student Teaching and the experience that I was presented with. It will without a doubt shape my perspective on teaching for the entirety of my career.

Professional Teaching Dispositions Reflection

1. What two dispositional areas do you feel very comfortable with and why?

I feel that I am very comfortable with the disposition concerning being an ‘Effective Communicator’. I feel very comfortable being in front of a group of Students or a group of Peers and getting my point across in an articulate way and often entertaining manner. After this semester I have adapted my teaching style to incubus a cyclical style of speaking so that I begin and end the lesson in the same essential thought or question concerning the topic at hand. This gains a full perspective and brings the ‘point home’ in my opinion. I also consider myself very good at reading a room and modifying my delivery on the spot, which is an important aspect within this disposition. Being flexible and having the ability to turn on a dime is an essential part of teaching in my perspective.
I also think that I excel greatly at the disposition concerning having a ‘Desire to constantly improve my performance’. When I am passionate about a task, as I am about Teaching, I constantly want to improve myself. I find it a necessity to constantly review my performances and improve upon how I do things. Mrs. Cope and I worked great together in reviewing my lessons and my approach to constantly refine how I present information to Students. I was fortunate to be able to repeat the same lesson with multiple classes for my multiple sections, which gave me the opportunity to revise how I taught lessons and make improvements if needed. I found that certain things worked better than others during class time and that I could make my lesson more efficient though certain strategies. The second time I taught many of the lessons, I was able to do things like shave time off the Lecture and leave time to do more reviews of the key points before bringing things to a close for the day. Improving my teaching style and refining my methods go hand in hand with my commitment to continued learning in Science. Both aspects require effort and dedication to a continued study of methods and implementing new ideas.

2. What is one dispositional area you want to focus on in the future and Why?
One area I want to focus on in my career as an Educator is ‘Cultural Responsiveness.’ I feel that I was less than effective than I could have been during the majority of the semester in this disposition. I did make efforts to improve on this key metric through the last half of this Spring. However, I realize that this area is one that I do not implement automatically and this is something I want to work on changing as I evolve in this profession. I feel that it is very important to give students a multicultural perspective during instruction, even if the class is fairly homogenous ethnically. I would like to make improvements during the next year by making this disposition a regular part of my lesson plans and common point with my class. I did have great experiences with LGBTQ students in my classes this Spring, along with much of the female and Latin X community. But, I did not feel as though I build this need for diversity perspective into my curriculum as much as I could have.
The Students in my classes were all very respectful of these diverse individuals within the school, despite being a fairly conservative community. I was very impressed that they all supported the uniqueness of their fellow students and were close friends despite differences that would have separated many students during my High School Career Twenty years ago. I made sure to respect all these Students’ pronouns or other preferences during class to make them feel respected and I will strive to do this going forward as well. In general, during the past I made a conscious effort to treat all my student equally, with equal time and equal representation during all my classes. However, I could do better in the future and I further think that this behavior is very important. I will continue to make Diversity in the classroom a priority during my Career.

3. How will these dispositions support the PROFESSIONAL GOALS you have for yourself?
I feel that I did fairly well overall with these dispositions during my Student Teaching work and beyond this time during all the other opportunities afforded me this Spring, such as clubs and coaching. I feel that my biggest ‘take away’ this year has been that even as am faced with challenges and adverse situations, I tend to rise to the occasion and meet these challenges head-on. In truth, each hardship has taken a toll on me, however, I am very proud of myself in that I never let it drag me down. Each time things became difficult it only proved to make me a stronger person and better Teacher in the end. And this is truly my professional goal: to constantly improve myself as I increase my knowledge. I endeavor to never ‘rest on my laurels’ and become stagnate in my career. I enjoy learning new things about Science and Technology and I want to share this passion with my Students by constantly working to be the best version of me that is possible.
I know that I can focus on my professionalism and dedicate myself to being the best Teacher I can be going forward. There will undoubtedly be more challenges in my life and in the Educational system as a whole going forward. There will be times that things seem overwhelming to me, however, by keeping to the main lessons that I have learned during this program, which are to always be flexible, motivated and dedicated to growth; I feel that things will work out amazingly for my Me and my Students. Adapting to changes and continuously growing to become the best one can be definitely gives an inherent advantage in overcoming future challenges. In my opinion, this is the key component of being a successful professional, no matter what field or discipline a person in involved in.