teaching

Going into the education field there are several professional organizations I can join as a teacher. Of course you have teacher unions like The NEA. http://www.nea.org/home/19583.htm. Which is a national organization and more information about them just follow the link above. And there are a handful of other organizations out there but this is the one that I’m interested in the most. 

Job vacancies for Teachers in the state of Mississippi can be found at http://www.mde.k12.ms.us/mtc/vacancy.htm. It was updated at the beginning of this month. The four positions I am interested in are Canton public (special Ed), East jasper (ele. SPED), Hollandale (elementary ed), and Tupelo Public (elementary ed). The first three listed are in critical need shortage areas, which I have to teach in or at for the first two years of my teaching career because I am receiving critical needs teaching grant.  The qualifications for teaching are pretty basic in a way. One need a teaching license( which involves degree in education, for me dual education in elementary and SPED) And if you are interested in math, science, reading, social studies, etc. etc. you can receive endorsements in these areas. And even at times these will help you find a job the more stuff you can do the better.  Teachers also need to have good organizational skills, typing skills, language skills, and simply have patience.

Training skills I have had are classes in music for elementary teachers, math, and art for elementary teachers at my junior college. In these classes we have also wrote lesson plans, taught the class, learned class room strategies, and other applications we can use in our classrooms. I am currently enrolled in mathematics for elementary teachers II here at the University of Southern Miss. In the spring I will start my block classes (finally). I have had many experiences keeping children and keeping classes of children. I volunteered at VBS at my church several years, and specifically kept the age of children I want to teach, kindergarten and lower elementary classes. I baby sat over the summer, and I also have grown up with a sister that has Down syndrome, which is a type of mental retardation. This I have felt has prepared me to work in a classroom with mentally retarded children; I have true real life hands on experience which most teachers can never have.  I have good typing skills, and good understanding of the majority of computer technology resources.

I would be interested in applying for the job at East Jasper; Elementary SPED, for two reasons. One, its elementary special ed which my degree will be in and two it is in a critical needs teaching area which in the terms of my teaching grant I am required to teach in for two years ( or however many years I receive the grant). I feel that my skills dealing with special needed children, my sister, her best friend, and also being involved with other special needed children of friends of the family. It is also in elementary which I want to do. I am not too interested in doing middle school or high school level teaching. But if it came down to it, for the sake of a job, I would gladly do it. I am experienced in the arts programs, such as music and art, which some schools do not have these programs, so I would be able to do musical and artistic activities in my class room. Exposing children to these types of programs, that they never may experience at home or anywhere else.

I would be very interested in getting hired in this position at east jasper, or simply anywhere else that is hiring elementary and special Ed teachers. No matter where I go I will be happy helping children, to put it simply, I enjoy teaching and helping children very much. To be able to work at any of these critical need locations I would enjoy, yes they may be in the middle of nowhere, but to help children that have simply been pasted up by society would be enjoyable. People may call me crazy, and I might be, but I have always felt the need to teach and help children, elementary and special education. 

Dual licensing in Elementary Education and Special education.

 This blog was a little harder for me, because searching for a website for a department for my major was hard to find. I really couldnt find one that i was like OH wow this is amazing. Majority of the sites i found were very blah and werent really helpful what so ever. For example http://www.coe.hawaii.edu/sped/bed    Was one i found that was very boring. It didnt have alot of good information, it was just your basic informative site. No pictures, nothing really catching at all. It just really didnt have alot of information, although it did provide departmental phone numbers, that was pretty much the only helpful thing.  It was also very hard to get around you had to go In and out of other pages to find out what information you needed. It didn’t have a very detailed course listing as well.

The site that i found very helpful and enjoyed was http://www.pdx.edu/sped/elementary-special-educator. This site by far was the best one i found out of many i looked at. Its welcoming, very helpful, and has all the education degrees on one site area. You dont have to search the entire website to find out what you are looking for. One thing i found different about this site was that one the same page talking about the degree it also had important financial aid information on the same page. It also had color and pictures. Also had profiles of people that are involved in that departmental area. It had very descriptive course listings and fin. Aid help as well.

The thing I found to be the most important while looking at all of these sites is to be very friendly and welcoming. Color, pictures, descriptions, and course listings are key on a good department site. Many sites had one paragraph then rest of the page would be blank, empty, or have ad’s for other school things no pertaining to education which was very distracting. Education wed sites should be colorful like classrooms, have pictures of teachers being involved with students, and give good descriptions of what the major requires in school and out in the work force. Many people don’t truly understand how hard going into education is, especially special education. It’s a hard and challenging field to go into. It’s not all fun and games, it is a hard field, that one must truly dedicate their teaching careers to. 

DEFINING OBJECTIVES
Overall Purpose
1. What are you writing? A blog about other universities education/special education majors in order to find ways to recruit students for my major.
2. What prompts you to write? My teacher for eng. 333 told me to
3. What outcome do you desire? To be able to effectively make a brochure for my major and convince others to go into the education field.
4. What outcome does your reader desire? To become motivated and persuaded to join the education field

Reader Profile
1. Who is your primary reader? Other students going into my field who are looking for advice
2. What is your reader’s relationship to you? The same major as me, along with the same desire to get information.
3. What are your reader’s job title and responsibilities? They are a student, maybe a part time job as well, maybe already in the education field looking to go back to school
4. Who else might read your communication? Other teachers, who are looking for information to give their own students.
5. How familiar is your reader with your subject? Most likely either very knowledgeable or no understanding what so ever and they are looking for a major/degree program to select
6. How familiar is your reader with your specialty? Probably either very or not
7. Does your reader have any communication preferences you should take
into account? They might not have access to internet so producing brochures would be very beneficial to those who do not have access
8. Should you take into account any other things about your reader when
writing? The knowledge on the subject, their understanding of the subject, and maybe even their school level.

Situational Analysis
1. What events and circumstances influence the way you should write? The readers understanding also the availability of information. If the reader gets confused and doesnt understand then me as the writer has failed being able to provide information

Usability Objectives (Reader’s Tasks)
1. What are the key questions your reader will ask while reading? Whats required in my major? where is the best place for me to go? What kind of prior schooling do i have to have to pursue such a degree? And most importantly what is the cost.
2. How will your reader search for the answer? (The reader may use more
than one strategy.)
___X_ Sequential reading from beginning to end
____ Selective reading, as when using a reference book (what key terms
will your reader look for?)


3. How will your reader use the information you provide?
____ Compare point by point (what will be the points of comparison?)
____ Attempt to determine how the information you provide will affect
him or her
____ Attempt to determine how the information you provide will affect his
or her organization
____ Follow instructions step by step
____ Other (explain)

Persuasive Objectives (Reader’s Attitudes)
1. What is your reader’s attitude toward your subject? Why? What do you
want it to be? One of interest, and the desire to become better informed and educated. Why? Cause they want to learn more about education and special education. I hope its one of desire to learn. WE need more teachers who are truly dedicated to there job and want to learn.

2. What is your reader’s attitude toward you? Why? What do you want it to
be? I hope its a good one. Why? Because i want to teach, if i cant be trusted to provide good information well what good of a teacher am i? I want to be accepting, and non judgemental. I want them to view me as one who is already in the education field so my knowledge of my degree is experienced and not just memorized.

Stakeholders
1. Who, besides your readers, are stakeholders in your communication? The university, or job area i am representing with my brochure
2. How will they be affected by it? It could be reflected on them in the long run as where they chose to go to school

Constraints
1. What expectations, regulations, or other factors limit the way you can write? The job requirements, this education, so we need to be serious but also fun and friendly. To teach little children you also have to have a fun friendly side.

Lesson plans

Going into education one type of document that I will have to write quite frequently are weekly lesson plans. Lesson plans are just a basic layout of what is going to be taught during the week, and they are usually required to be done a week’s time, to turn into the schools administration, or for emergencies incase substitute teachers are needed. I have plenty of practice writing lesson plans while at HCC in classes such as math for elementary teachers, art and music for elementary teachers. We not only had to write lessons plans, we had certain formats that had to be followed, and then at the end of semester had to teach the class based off of the lesson plans we as students had wrote.

One that I enjoyed the most was in music for elementary teachers. We had to choose a subject; I picked weather (mainly rain). We also had to choose a grade level to teach at, I selected lower elementary K-4, and since that is what my degree is going into. When we were writing the lesson plans we used the Bloom’s Taxonomy Levels of learning. Which here is a good website with the levels listed http://www.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm.

And with using these levels we fit them into each of the categories of the lesson plans. While we were writing the plans we had to take into account the age of our audience and what their level of learning was. Example being you wouldn’t be teaching kindergarteners physics and 7^th graders shapes. We had to be on the audience’s level, which at times is harder than you think. You had to write the lesson plans with the intent to teach them a brand new subject or add on to prior knowledge.  Your purpose of writing lesson plans are to just give you a type of guided path for the week, it also helps when the teacher is out sick, you don’t freak out the substitute teachers. Lesson plans help you stay on track with the child’s education. You are the teacher, so your purpose is to teach whatever the subject is, like weather, in the easiest way possible, while also including activities for the children to do.

Your language has to be simple and easy to understand. Your tone must be calm and sweet, teaching and yelling at the same time aren’t a good way to teach a child. Your relationship with your class must come across as that, you, the teacher know what you are teaching, because believe or not they can smell fear. Ha-ha.

To me lesson plans aren’t that hard of a thing to do; it’s just tedious is all. It takes a lot of time, planning, and subject selection. But if you are taught how to do them easily from the beginning it’s just smooth sailing from then on. 

Student Profile

    Well I havent always liked writing mainly because my grammar is terrible. I much rather write about a topic that i pick out instead of being told what to write about. I am a junior here at USM working towards dual license in Elementary education and special education. I love working with little kids. I dont have a job...but i need one like MAJOR. I have hopes of finding teaching once i graduate...not really picky where.
   Being a teacher one document that i will have to write regularly is Weekly Lesson Plans. I have had plenty of practice writing lesson plans due to my classes i took at Holmes Comm College. I took art, music, and math for elementary teachers and in all of these classes we had to write lessons plans and then teach the class based off of our lesson plans. Besides lesson plans the only other workplace writing i have done is a speech i wrote on the importance of keeping music in our elementary schools. This can also fall into the public setting, because i could end up working at a school that maybe considering cutting their music program. Writing a speech on this topic i could revamp it to a higher lever then it already is at, changing my audience approach and perhaps include more media and more sources to prove my point. For the general audience approach, i could make pamphlets to hand out explaining the importance of music in education.
I hope to in this class is to just improve my writing skills for the workplace. Learning different techniques that can be used in my career. Cause hey i wont lie..i could use the help. haha. My worries mainly are just keeping up with everything thats due and not falling behind.