Content Knowledge
Human Development and Learning
Diversity
Planning for Instruction
Learning Environment
Instructional Delivery
Communication
Assessment
Collaborative Relationships
Reflection and Professional Growth
Professional Conduct
The teacher understands the central concepts, methods of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) and creates learning experiences that make the content meaningful to all students.
It is necessary that teachers have thorough knowledge of the content they are teaching, including both a wide general knowledge and a deep understanding of the material. It is also important that teachers make connections among the different subjects being taught. This is especially important with the push for more reading and math, thus allowing less time for science and social studies. By making connections across the disciplines, social studies and science material can still be taught through other subjects. It was greatly emphasized during my science methods course that children learn best when they are actively engaged in the activity as much as possible. I always keep this in mind when lesson planning. As much as possible, I try to get the students actively involved in the lesson. For example, while completing a geometry unit with the fifth grade students, my mentor and I had the students act as “architects” and create their own 3-dimensional models. We connected geometry to their everyday lives by showing them the real-life applications of what they were learning. After being in the classroom for student teaching, I now believe that students learn best when they are able to connect the material to their lives, be actively involved in the learning process, become interested in a topic, and know they will be successful if they do their best.
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Human Development and Learning
The teacher understands how individuals grow, develop, and learn and provides learning opportunities that support the intellectual, social, and personal development of all students.
An effective educator advocates for each and every student. Effective teachers show a respect for learners of all ages, all learning styles, and those from all backgrounds and walks of life. In order to be an advocate for the education of all students, a teacher must differentiate instruction, make modifications and adaptations, and provide choice to the students. Also, I believe that to be an advocate for all students, a teacher must maintain a positive attitude and know that he/she can impact student learning. I have learned that every classroom is full of students with a wide range of abilities, learning styles, home situations, interests, strengths, and weaknesses. I have learned that it takes a lot of strength, passion, and dedication to ensure that all students’ needs are met. Although it requires much from the teacher, the end result is very rewarding. I am very passionate about making sure that every student receives a quality education.
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Diversity
The teacher understands how students differ in their approaches to learning and creates instructional opportunities that are adapted to diverse learners.
Each child is a unique individual, having different learning styles, interests, weaknesses, and varying backgrounds. Teachers must acquire knowledge about their students at the beginning of the school year and continue to obtain information throughout the year. It is essential that teachers attain this information in order to meet each student’s needs. There are many ways teachers can gain an understanding of each student’s skills and knowledge, such as taking interest surveys, meeting with students on an individual basis, comparing pre-assessment and summative assessment data, and looking at daily work. As I create my lessons, I try to develop activities that can reach all learners. For example, many times I try to develop lessons that reach auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic learners. I have found that the more students are actively engaged in their learning, the more they enjoy and learn from the activity. At the beginning of the semester, it was difficult to modify lessons to meet the needs of all students; however, as I have become more familiar with each student’s abilities, I have become better at designing lessons to meet their needs.
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Planning for Instruction
The teacher understands instructional planning and designs instruction based upon knowledge of the discipline, students, the community, and curriculum goals.
I have been fortunate to be involved in a teacher education program that slowly immerses the pre-service teacher into lesson planning. Throughout my education at Illinois State, my teachers have always emphasized the importance of thorough lesson planning. As I reflect on my lesson planning skills, I believe I have become much more efficient at writing these plans. While student teaching, I have learned that it is very important to have thorough plans because they help ensure that the day will run smoothly. While student teaching, I use my lessons plans to guide my instruction and as a visual reminder of all of the materials I need to have ready. This becomes especially important when activities or lessons require a lot of preparation. When lesson planning, I have learned to keep the students' needs and interests in mind. For example, I have observed that my most successful lessons are ones that captivate the students’ interest from the very beginning. As I plan my lessons, I use the Illinois State Learning Standards and the Pekin School District standards to guide my lesson planning. I try to design activities that will best meet the goals of these standards. All of my lessons include assessment, such as pre-assessment, formative, summative, informal questioning, surveys, and more. This assessment is used to help guide my instruction.
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Learning Environment
The teacher uses an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.
In order to maintain a learning environment that is conducive to student learning, a teacher must be a good classroom manager. As a PDS student, I have had the opportunity to observe teachers establishing classroom rules and routines from the very beginning. The first week of school, my mentor and I involved the students in making classroom rules and procedures. We also explained the classroom management plan to the students, explaining both rewards and consequences for behaviors. By creating an environment of rules, routines, and procedures, a more positive classroom for student learning is established. It is essential that a teacher use appropriate guidance and discipline strategies. As a student teacher, learning to implement appropriate guidance and discipline strategies has been a great area for personal growth and development.
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Instructional Delivery
The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students’ development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.
As a student-teacher, I have found that teachers must utilize a wide variety of resources to develop meaningful lessons. Throughout my student teaching experience, I learned that it is important to seek out additional support because there are endless resources available to teachers. I think it would be a disservice to the students if teachers only used the textbooks to teach concepts. My mentor and I use technology in the classroom on a daily basis to create computer learning stations and show United Streaming videos. I have learned that there is an enormous supply of teacher resources available that can positively impact lessons.
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Communication
The teacher uses knowledge of effective written, verbal, nonverbal, and visual communication techniques to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom.
Throughout this year of student teaching, I have been given many opportunities to demonstrate an effective use of communication. I believe it is extremely important to have communication from the very beginning. The night before the first day of school, I attended “Meet the Teacher” night at Washington Intermediate School. At this event, I had the opportunity to meet both the parents and the students. This was my first opportunity to express to the students and their families just how excited I was to be student teaching. I learned that this is a great, non-threatening way to introduce students to their new classroom. At the end of Phase I, the quarter I spent with my 5th graders, I gave the students a note communicating how much I enjoyed being in their classroom and my excitement for coming back in January. Not only have I made a strong effort to communicate with my students, but I have also put a great amount of effort into communicating with my mentor teacher. I believe this communication is extremely important, as it affects the students and how each day will run. We have communicated verbally, through email, and by the lesson planning that we do. I definitely learned that this has positively influenced my experience in the classroom. Finally, I communicate with my peer student teachers via our email listserve. Communicating via email with my peers has allowed us to share great teaching resources, answer each other’s questions, and collaborate together.
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Assessment
The teacher understands various formal and informal assessment strategies and uses them to support the continuous development of all students.
Throughout the course of my education at Illinois State University, I have been taught to use assessment to guide instruction. I believe this is very important because it helps teachers focus energy on what the students truly do not understand and less time on the concepts already mastered. Assessment is used in a variety of ways. It can be used as a pre-assessment tool to guide instruction. It can be used a formative assessment tool to monitor that the students are learning the material, and it can be used as a summative assessment tool to validate that students truly do understand the concepts covered. Although I have always thought assessment was important, I do not think I truly understood the value of it and its impacts on student learning until I began student teaching. At the beginning of student teaching, I struggled to use assessment in my lessons. After many discussions in my methods courses and with my mentor, I have been able to incorporate all types of assessment into my lessons. I have found the use of assessment extremely beneficial.
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Collaborative Relationships
The teacher understands the role of the community in education and develops and maintains collaborative relationships with colleagues, parents/guardians, and the community to support student learning and well-being.
While student teaching in the PDS program, I have been given the opportunity to work and collaborate with many educators. While in all three placements, my mentors and I always collaborated with fellow teachers. In the kindergarten classroom, every day our class would join with the neighboring first grade class for calendar time. In the junior high setting, my mentor and I would often plan lessons with the neighboring science teacher. I learned that this made the planning much easier and overall better for the students. While my mentor and I were more familiar with the 7th grade science topics, the other teacher was more familiar with the 8th grade topics. This sharing of knowledge allowed us to combine ideas to make much stronger lessons for the students. In the fifth grade classroom, the students switch classrooms for math, language arts, science, and social studies. With all of the switching, we have students come into our room from four different classrooms, which allows my mentor and I to develop positive relationships with other teachers. Also, I have attended grade level and village meetings while in the intermediate school and team meetings while in the junior high school. During all of these meetings, I have been involved in many positive interactions with other teachers and educational support personnel.
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Reflection and Professional Growth
The teacher is a reflective practitioner who continually evaluates how choices and actions affect students, parents, and other professionals in the learning community and actively seeks opportunities to grow professionally.
As an intern, I have been required to reflect on many lessons and activities. Although many of these reflections were written, I constantly reflect on my own. I reflect right after the lesson, on my hour drive home, and many other times throughout the day. In addition to reflecting on my own, my mentor and I have reflected together. We typically discuss what went well and what did not go well. At the beginning of this year, I used the Pekin Professional Development School “Fish Food for Thought” worksheet to record my reflections. This worksheet incorporated what I learned, help that I needed, what I needed to work on, and questions I had throughout each week. I found this worksheet to be a very helpful tool. I also used this worksheet a lot during my phase two placement. This was extremely beneficial because due to the school schedule it was hard for my mentor and I to verbally communicate throughout the day, so we used this worksheet as a guide at the end of the day. As the year has progressed, my student-teaching mentor and I have used discussion-based reflection more and more. I have come to very much enjoy this time we spend reflecting. I love to hear her opinions, as she has much more experience than I do. For example, my mentor will indicate on my weekly evaluation what things are going well and what things I need to work on. I take this advice very seriously so that I am able to grow as a teacher. I have learned that reflection is truly a huge aspect and contributor for developing into the teacher I aspire to be.
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Professional Conduct
The teacher understands education as a profession, maintains standards of professional conduct, and provides leadership to improve student learning and well-being.
Although I have always possessed the belief that it is extremely important to continue to grow and develop with whatever you do, I believe it even more since beginning student teaching. From the beginning of my college career, I have made many efforts to become very involved, so as to develop my teaching abilities. Participation in professional organizations has yielded very positive experiences. As a result, I feel I have acquired more knowledge and experience of working with a diverse range of children. In addition, I have attended many professional conferences, such as a presentation by Harry Wong and the IEA-NEA Fall 2007 Conference. I have also had the opportunity to present at the Illinois Reading Conference. After attending these conferences, I always feel excited and motivated to try new things in the classroom. I also always find myself reflecting on my own teaching style after attending conferences for teachers. I have learned a great deal about classroom management and more ways to establish rules, routines, and procedures during the first weeks of school from a Harry Wong presentation at Illinois Sate University. Throughout my teaching career, I plan to attend professional teaching conferences, further my education by getting my masters, and continually reflect and change my teaching style to best meet the needs of the students.
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