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Delgado - About the Author
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Teresa G. Delgado
I will never forget my 6th grade parent-teacher conference in which my teacher, Mrs. Methven, asked me in front of my mother what I wanted to be when I grew up? I remember telling her I wanted to be a karate teacher. My mother rolled her eyes and looked dessolutioned. While my teacher, on the other hand, smiled and looked me straight in the eyes and said, “I think you will be a great one”.
I think back to this moment and I realize how much impact a simple comment and teacher can have in the life of their students. Everyday I feel a great responsibility to offer my students the best education I can give them because they all deserve the best. The best education is one that gives them the opportunities to grow in the 6 C’s and gives them the necessary tools they will need to explore and conquer the ever-changing world we live in today. My name is Teresa Gonzalez Delgado and although I didn’t become a karate teacher, I did become a school teacher and I have been teaching for 14 years at that same school where Mr’s Methven asked me the question that would become a reality.
I have always believed that opportunities come for all of us, but sometimes we don’t take them because we are afraid of failure. The first time I heard about Touro University and the Masters program I let that uncertainty take over me and let the opportunity go. Not everybody gets a second chance, so I was fortunate to hear that Napa Learns and Touro University were working together in an effort to empower teachers offering the Masters program again. With no doubt in my mind this time, I stepped out of my comfort zone and jumped on the wagon to better myself and grow with my experience. Thanks to the program, I was able to innovate and update my pedagogical practices, become current and knowledgable with technology tools, and discover efficient ways to educate, equip and engage my diversified population of students. My responsibility to deliver state of the art education has gone beyond the 4 walls of my classroom. I feel the need to collaborate and share my new knowledge with my colleagues. Teaching is an endeavor, and I will never stop exploring for deeper and richer knowledge.
I think back to this moment and I realize how much impact a simple comment and teacher can have in the life of their students. Everyday I feel a great responsibility to offer my students the best education I can give them because they all deserve the best. The best education is one that gives them the opportunities to grow in the 6 C’s and gives them the necessary tools they will need to explore and conquer the ever-changing world we live in today. My name is Teresa Gonzalez Delgado and although I didn’t become a karate teacher, I did become a school teacher and I have been teaching for 14 years at that same school where Mr’s Methven asked me the question that would become a reality.
I have always believed that opportunities come for all of us, but sometimes we don’t take them because we are afraid of failure. The first time I heard about Touro University and the Masters program I let that uncertainty take over me and let the opportunity go. Not everybody gets a second chance, so I was fortunate to hear that Napa Learns and Touro University were working together in an effort to empower teachers offering the Masters program again. With no doubt in my mind this time, I stepped out of my comfort zone and jumped on the wagon to better myself and grow with my experience. Thanks to the program, I was able to innovate and update my pedagogical practices, become current and knowledgable with technology tools, and discover efficient ways to educate, equip and engage my diversified population of students. My responsibility to deliver state of the art education has gone beyond the 4 walls of my classroom. I feel the need to collaborate and share my new knowledge with my colleagues. Teaching is an endeavor, and I will never stop exploring for deeper and richer knowledge.
Reflections on TPACK and Life Lasting Journey
Over the course of my teaching career, I have learned a variety of instructional methods and techniques, that have helped me deliver the content I need to teach. I quickly learned that having great strategies under one’s belt was not enough, I was missing an important element in our ecology. I was learning and teaching for my world, and my world was long gone. I was supposed to teach and prepare my students for the 21 century. An era of critical thinkers, creators, and rapidly moving technology. Technology was the missing piece. As I began learning about technology, I began integrating it into my daily lessons. Combining all three elements of knowledge, or TPACK, I was able to enhance my content material and strengthen my pedagogical ways. With TPACK, I became an innovative teacher that looked beyond the four walls of the classroom. My students became more engaged and were eager to learn. Together we created situations that invited us to be critical thinkers and seek deeper answers, to communicate effectively and respectfully with others, and maintain student safety while searching the web. As Punya Mishra states, “Technology changes what we teach and how we teach”. I have a new mindset and students success now seems promising and reachable, something tangible that we can all grab. I am now an Innovative leader, that understands and knows about the balanced center of TPACK. I have a responsibility to fulfill, to prepare this generation of students for their journey into the world ahead.
Lasting Learning from the Innovative Learning program
Some realizations and confirming take aways.
- I am capable of learning anything I put my mind into doing no matter what the obstacles might be.
- I have a world of resources at the tip of my fingertips to use.
- My world changes day with day at fast speed. I feel capable of keeping up with it.
- In order to get your point across, and be understood, you need to imagine yourself in your audiences shoes.
- I am a visual learner
- If I want to create somthing new, I have to think and move outside the box. Nothing every grows in the comfort zone.
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