Artifact Reflection Artifact Title: Gender and Ethnic Journal Entries Date: Spring 2012 ARTIFACT DESCRIPTION

My journal entries for Ethnic and Gender Equity in Education Class was a requirement that allowed me to reflect on what I experienced throughout my service learning and throughout the topics covered by the class. The journal entries provided are from the beginning of the semester when the class was talking about stereotypes; the entries focus on my response to the question of whether my classmates and I use stereotypes. ALIGNMENT REFLECTION

Wisconsin Teacher Standard Alignment The journal entries I wrote align with Standard 9: The teacher is a reflective practitioner who continually evaluates the effects of his or her choices and actions on pupils, parents, professionals in the learning community and others and who actively seeks out opportunities to grow professionally. I chose standard 9 because, during my ethnic and gender class I was continuously reflecting on what was being said about social, ethnic, and gender issues. Some of the topics that we talked about where Act 10 and gender equity in sports and in school classrooms, Native American rights and our responsibility to show respect and how students will come from different socioeconomic classes. During the reflections I discovered more about myself and how I view different aspects in society. I grew by first making my own judgment call about questions that were raised and also different situations that I saw go on during my service learning at the Boys and Girls Club in Dubuque. Some of these situations that I had to make judgment calls on were when a young African-American student called me white boy. I responded right away to him to let him know that my name was Nelson not white boy. Another thing that I saw was that one of the high school girls asked the guys if she could play with them. The young adults didnt even recognize that she had said anything. So I went over there and told her that she could play with me since they were already in the middle of their game. She agreed and ended up beating me in a game of one-on-one. After reflecting back on these situations, I had a debriefing with a PACCE officer. I talked about what I had experienced and how I might change what I do as a teacher if I find myself in that situation again. A lot of the situations that I found myself in both the PACCE officer and I thought it would be a good opportunity to teach the student a valuable lesson. Take the African-American student calling me white boy. I would explain to this student after

the situation that he should not call someone by their color. Everyone has a name so he should learn to find out the persons name then use it. I would then further explain that if I called him black boy he would not like that. Explaining the importance of not bringing in race or gender when teaching students is important. Anytime a situation comes up in my class that race, gender, or any other social issue I will use that as a teaching moment. This person also gave me goals each week to try and be more involved with the learning that was taking place. This helped me look at different ways that I could handle a situation without it causing any frustration or harm to an individual, a group, or a community. By actively going to the Boys and Girls Club of Dubuque and helping tutor with their homework, I grew a lot during this class. I opened myself up to what the students wanted to be engaged in and how I could get them to listen to me without being offending. Being in an urban environment I learned how to handle many social and ethnic issues that came up and I am now better prepared for future situations. UW Platteville School of Education Knowledge, Skill, Disposition Statement Alignment KS4.a Reflects on teaching is: The aware of specific elements of his/her teaching that contributed to successful instruction, and can offer alternative teacher action to predict the future successes of alternate approaches. I am now aware that each student will learn differently and will want to be their own independent person. While helping the students with their homework I noticed that some did better if I used my fingers to help them with their math problems. Others learned better if I read the question out to them. Both of these instructional strategies I learned because I now know the VARK model. VARK stands for Visual, Aural, Read/write, and kinesthetic. Each student I helped seem to be a different part of the VARK model. In my future classroom I plan to teach to these differentiating needs. Secondary KSD Alignment KSD4.e Grows and Develops Professionally What I learned about teaching/learning: Through my journal entries, I learned that it is important for teachers to be able to reflect about themselves and the situations they find themselves in. Without being able to look back at certain situations or how I view each student, I will not be able to change. This change needs to happen in order for me to grow and gain a greater understanding of how students act and behave. This principle has a broad application to many classroom situations. For example, if all of my students do badly on a test, I will have to look back at how I taught the students the material. I will have to reflect on my mistakes and think about how I will be able to change them in the future. What I learned about myself as a prospective educator:

I discovered, that I have to continually look at what I go though everyday, and see how I might handle a situation differently. No matter what action I take on a situation it will affect someone in a positive or negative manner. With reflection, I feel that I will be able to look back on my past mistakes, and make good decisions for the future. Dealing with gender and ethnic issues is a complicated matter; when it comes to reflecting and seeing how these issues may effect different groups, it will be important to make changes in order that problems concerning these issues may be avoided. As a result of the reflections, I am more competent in reflecting and growing professionally as a person and as a teacher. I understand and am able to act on how students respond and where they maybe coming from. The more experiences that I go through and reflect on, the greater the professional I will become. I found out that reflecting is a key asset to teaching. This is because as a teacher, I will often go through difficult situations where it is best to take the time reflect upon the situation and find a way to handle it that meets the ethnic and social standards of everyone involved.