Photos :)

A little more about me: My favorite football team is the New Orleans Saints, my roommates and I have 3 animals (Halliwell, the doggie, Salem, the bigger cat, and Bellatrix, the kitten. I love the Harry Potter series. The photo of my sister and I shows us in 2011, when we first began at ASU, and again in 2013, our last year. She's an Education major and is student teaching this semester.

Reflection #1

Hi everyone! My name is Alisha Graham; I’m a Psychology major with a minor in Education. I think this makes my experience in this program a little different than most people (I have not specialized in a content area and I don’t plan to take the PPR certification test) My overall goal is to be able to teach at the community college level and I choose Education as my minor so that I can have some experience inside the classroom. I know this is a secondary program and that middle/high school will be a totally different experience than community college but I feel that the basics that I will learn in this course and what I have learned in the courses I have taken will definitely help me in the future. To reach my goals I will have to attend a graduate school and receive my master’s degree so that’s what I plan to work on after graduating this May. This semester I will be placed at Glenn Middle School in an 8th Grade English course. My reasons for this is because I have contacted my middle school in Houston, where I plan to move to after graduation, and I am trying to set up my own observations to gain more experience inside the classroom. One important trait I believe that teachers must possess is the skill of being facilitators. Their overall job is to guide students while not giving them all the answers. This means not only being a lecturer but listening, giving feedback, and being positive. It is critical for teachers to not only provide information to the students but to ask students questions to make them think and form their own opinions and ideas. Another trait that is equally important for a teacher to possess is the ability to be flexible. Students learn in different ways or may not understand the subject material after a lesson is complete. As teachers, we need to be able to meet the needs of our students. This may mean adding components to a lesson plan or changing the way we present a lesson to meet each individual’s needs. Lastly, I think teachers should serve as role models. Students may or may not have an adult in their lives to encourage them to reach their goals and to do their best inside and outside the classroom. Teachers can serve as a positive image for students.