I accomplished a lot of creative work as part of my English Learning paraprofessional job using my digital literacy and creative thinking skills which benefitted my students by provision of more interesting learning material. To ensure that the students were truly interested in learning, I wrote and edited high-quality content and visually impactful programs under deadline pressure with exciting, captivating and authentic approach. My proficiency at supporting the students has always been especially important to me, as I believe that educators are responsible for creating better opportunities for future generations.
Teachers and paraprofessionals can play a critical role in identifying students who need help, motivating them to seek support. Of course, it is teachers who usually play the main role in the educational process. However, they do not always manage to devote time to students’ problems, primarily due to the elementary lack of time. In my opinion, paraprofessionals should also work hard to ensure that not only the educational process is comprehensive, but that the students are well-cared about. Ames and Mason (2015) also state that “social scientists are obliged to understand how people act and react in uncomfortable situations” (p. 272). I believe that it is also a paraprofessional’s duty to resolve such situations when they occur. Thus, as I am currently an English Learning paraprofessional, I strive to provide the children, specifically, the LatinX ones, with all kinds of support they require.
I accomplished editorial work during my English Learning paraprofessional job using my critical thinking and communication skills which benefitted the school I am working at by creation of well-designed learning material. In this course of work, I provided editorial guidance to the team devoted to delivery of top-quality educational content. The need for the formation of quality knowledge is constantly growing, while traditional tools, in my opinion, are only suitable for relatively simple, “linear” training methods. When creating more complex programs, using traditional methods leads to wasted time and resources.
The educational content me and my team created is based on the systematic use of knowledge about effective learning methods. We strived to build an educational process with an “open architecture” and design a real learning environment. One needs to understand the needs of the students and define the learning objectives, and then transfer knowledge and information as quickly, accurately, and efficiently as possible. However, this requires you to know all the prerequisites and clearly define the final properties of the content. This, in turn, requires systematic and well-structured work, and not of just one person, but a well-chosen development team. I was chosen as senior editor by the team due to my extensive experience in the field.
I accomplished the development of evaluation methods for the educational content using my expertise and problem-solving skill which benefitted the school I am working at by provision of special assessment guidelines. I think that the evaluation of the chosen teaching method and its effectiveness is impossible without operational analysis. Therefore, even at the stage of course development, the most flexible feedback system should be mapped out. Here, outside expertise and all types of modeling are most effective: from a pedagogical experiment with training a test group to brainstorming to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the developed content. Thus, I have designed specific evaluation methods that would allow both myself and other paraprofessionals to critically assess their educational materials and determine possible flaws and weaknesses.
Reference
Ames, D. R., & Mason, M. F. (2015). Tandem anchoring: Informational and politeness effects of range offers in social exchange. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(2), 254-274. Web.