What Now?

Mindset Breaker

After all the theories I have learned from the course, I have recognized that one of my pitfalls as an educator is in “deep thinking and deep learning.” Since I am teaching language, I settled with rote learning—all about memorizing. I thought when students memorize “How are you today?” and “I’m fine. Thank you.” they will learn the language. This mindset was so wrong!

Now, I need to think more deeply so that my students will learn more deeply. The principles of attention, primacy-recency effect, and motivation made an impact in my teaching practice. These three are the major changes that I will apply in my classes.

This course is indeed a mindset breaker!

Respect and Recognize Learning Process

Through this course, I have confirmed that each learner has unique intelligence and different epistemology. Hence, as a teacher, I need to recognize my student’s intelligence and epistemology. This is the only way that I can create a more engaged and efficient learning environment during my students’ learning process.

Ready, Set, Action!

With all these learnings, I am ecstatic to create. Firstly, I want to create a holistic curriculum for young learners. This curriculum will encompass the best principles from all the learning theories and will be applied in appropriate academic level. Secondly, I want to create instructional designs and materials that are based on human psychology—materials that touch behavioral learning, social learning, cognitive learning, and even constructivist learning. This will be colorful, fun, and creative especially for young learners. Thirdly, I want to create teaching methods and strategies that are most effective for each class, each subject, each lesson, and each level. These strategies will be contextualized based on the group of students’ culture, knowledge influencers, and emotional quotient stability.

I know that these things sound too much and too idealistic. But hey! Nothing is impossible. I don’t know what will come out from all of these ideas, but I know for sure that there will be a new creation. That is, a new creation of educational elements and a new creation of me as a facilitator of learning.

So, what now? Have I achieved my very goal which I stated in this eJournal: to become a better teacher? Not yet. As for now, I am satisfied to see myself to have become a better learner. And, maybe, as a better learner, I can become a better teacher.