My Growth as an Educator

A good educator will change and adapt their practice to suit the needs of their individual learners. They will also keep up with changes in the educational sector at a global level. They will continue their professional development actively, knowing that they need themselves to be life-long learners, in order to teach this to their students. They know that their students need to be 21st century learners in order to succeed in the world beyond school, therefore they adapted their teaching before 21st century skills even came up for debate. Most importantly, good educators reflect upon their teaching and their learning and they are self-aware. Self-awareness is the key to being a good educator, a great educator in fact.  Over the last 8 weeks, I have reflected over different topics within the educational sector and I have found that it has not only consolidated my ideas and opinions but given me the keys to being able to describe my thoughts and views in a clearer way....

My interdisciplinary connection map (created with Popplet) shows the connection between developing knowledge, points of view and support from others, and experiences. All together this shapes my learning experiences as an educator. I need all the aspects in order for my learning experiences to be authentic and therefore I am able to take my learning back to my daily life and apply it. If this is how MY learning is shaped, then you can see the need for interdisciplinary learning within the classroom.   From my map, there are a couple of areas I need to work harder on in order to keep my growth as an educator going. In fact, there will ALWAYS be areas to improve on... perhaps this is what makes a life long learner! Firstly, I need to become better at interacting online so I am consistently engaging with fellow educators and therefore continually developing my knowledge based on my own and others' points of view, receiving and sharing of new and exciting ideas ...

Ten years ago when I graduated, I never would have thought that social media would play such a huge part of not only my growth as an educator, but also in my practice as a teacher.  Today I not only belong to social networks and groups such as Google +, Twitter and Facebook NZ Primary Teachers, but I am gearing up my young students to take part in such things as blogging and Chapter Chat (a weekly Twitter conversation between schools throughout NZ, based on a common book we are reading).  Social media allows us as teachers and learners to have access to information, ideas and opinions and be connected on a global level. "In social networking sites a user can participate intensively in activities in the service, share contents, debate and share opinions and create different kinds of groups for different needs." (Silius, Miilumäki, Huhtamäki, Tebest, Meriläinen & Pohjolainen, 2010). I have found the Mindlab Google+ group invaluable in challenging my opinions and mindse...