Kindergarten Reflection Essay Example
My initial Kindergarten reflection
Based on my observations from watching the teachers in the videos combine with teaching kindergarten 7 years ago and being a primary teacher after that, my thoughts on the role of teachers in kindergarten are now somewhat confused. When I was a Kindergarten teacher, we still had themes and critical pathways were just being introduced (although not called as such). In general, our focus as a kindergarten team was mainly literacy based: print-rich classrooms, several opportunities for shared, modeled, guided and independent reading/writing, using non-fiction and fiction stories to teach themes, word wall, etc). The goal as the kindergarten team was to help students become cooperative learners who were able to apply basic math skills (counting, measuring) and basic language skills (simple decoding strategies, sounding out words to make simple sentences, know some simple high-frequency words, retell and predictions) so that they can be ready for the challenges in Grade 1. The program was more controlled and structured, and I always had an agenda for the kids at every centre. In addition to notes from observations, assessment was also conducted must-do jobs. In the video, this teacher (me) acted as a systems manager and moving forward, wasn’t the most constructive way to develop an inquiry-based classroom.
I find that with the FDK program, teachers take a facilitating and guiding role. There is no agenda. Teachers observe learning in the context of inquiry where children can question, plan, observe, reflect, discuss and communicate their findings with others. The teacher is intentional with the choice of materials used at the centres and he/she is intentional with how he/she will divide his/her time with students as he/she observes and identifies the learning that the students are engaged in. Observations are used to guide interactions between the teacher and students both verbally and non-verbally. The teacher chooses to
Based on my observations from watching the teachers in the videos combine with teaching kindergarten 7 years ago and being a primary teacher after that, my thoughts on the role of teachers in kindergarten are now somewhat confused. When I was a Kindergarten teacher, we still had themes and critical pathways were just being introduced (although not called as such). In general, our focus as a kindergarten team was mainly literacy based: print-rich classrooms, several opportunities for shared, modeled, guided and independent reading/writing, using non-fiction and fiction stories to teach themes, word wall, etc). The goal as the kindergarten team was to help students become cooperative learners who were able to apply basic math skills (counting, measuring) and basic language skills (simple decoding strategies, sounding out words to make simple sentences, know some simple high-frequency words, retell and predictions) so that they can be ready for the challenges in Grade 1. The program was more controlled and structured, and I always had an agenda for the kids at every centre. In addition to notes from observations, assessment was also conducted must-do jobs. In the video, this teacher (me) acted as a systems manager and moving forward, wasn’t the most constructive way to develop an inquiry-based classroom.
I find that with the FDK program, teachers take a facilitating and guiding role. There is no agenda. Teachers observe learning in the context of inquiry where children can question, plan, observe, reflect, discuss and communicate their findings with others. The teacher is intentional with the choice of materials used at the centres and he/she is intentional with how he/she will divide his/her time with students as he/she observes and identifies the learning that the students are engaged in. Observations are used to guide interactions between the teacher and students both verbally and non-verbally. The teacher chooses to