Matthew (Matt) Key, Georgia...initial thoughts on my professional growth as a teacher.

I have become more aware of my professional growth, which helped me focus attention to the ways that the content in my class was presented.  I lowered the stress level of the students by providing more opportunities for their learning.  My responses back to them were more positive than just giving them a yes or no answer to their questions.  These experiences in this process helped validate the enhancement of student learning by the use of different modalities for higher student achievement.  I noticed that my students were more responsive to the work because it took them out of the everyday note taking format and allow them to use different learning activities to attain higher levels of understanding.  These cumulative experiences have given me a broader repertoire of strategies to adapt my teaching for the diverse learners that I have in my classes.

Interestingly, I have noticed that growth has taken place in other areas as well.  I have become even more objective in school situations.  My perspective has moved more toward a big picture view with attention to detail.  Two areas of growth have been that I have increased my attention to modality details for student achievement  and have used more effective communication skills in collaboration with my colleagues.  The two suggestions that I would make of my progress would be to make sure that my preparation for my lessons have been well thought out providing different opportunities to reach different learners and have smaller chunks of information provided within each part of my lesson.  All of this together has allowed me to become more proactive and less reactive to circumstances at school.  I have become more positive with the situations at school and have developed skills in problem solving effectiveness.

Matthew (Matt) Key, Georgia