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 disciplines and creates learning experiences that make the content meaningful to all students.
Throughout my student teaching experience this year, I have had the opportunity to teach in two different grade levels. Going into my first grade classroom, I was completely confident that the content was easy enough that I could teach the students everything they needed to know with ease. When I finally go the hang of teaching in a variety of ways that fit the needs of my students, I realized that having a general knowledge of the content was not enough. For example, the first week of April marked the beginning of our integrated unit on butterflies. As we were learning about the lifecycle, my students were very curious about minute details of the butterfly. They were asking questions such as, “How do butterflies hang upside down on leaves? What are butterfly wings made of? How do the wings help them fly?” I realized that I too needed to do more research to answer all these questions.
During my brief time in fourth grade, I realized that not only did I need a general knowledge of all content areas, but I needed a more in-depth understanding of even my least favorite subjects. For example, when I first came into the fourth grade classroom, the students were working on plant projects where they needed to know all parts and the functions. I had to help one of the students with her make-up work on the project and realized that I had to learn along with her. She would ask me questions that I could not answer, so we would look them up and answer them together.
This is a picture of one of my students and her butterfly lifecycle mobile. They made the mobile out of paper plates and construction cut outs then pasted PowerPoint slides on the back of the mobile pieces.
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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.
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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.At the beginning of the year, I felt that it was not only important for me to get to know each student, but for them to learn about me as well. On the second day of school, I brought in a Bio-Box. In the box, I put objects in it that represent me to give the students a little insight as to who I am. I let them learn about my likes and interests, my favorite subjects in school, and my family. Over the next couple of days, I conducted interest inventories for each of my students. I then paired them up with a partner to share there interests and then introduce each other to the class.
As a student teacher, I get many of my lesson ideas either from other teachers, the internet, or even teacher hand-books. Reading was the last subject that I took on during Phase III. With each weekly story, I try to plan lessons according to my students’ interests. I look at lessons the Teacher’s Manual suggests to teach and I tweak them to fit my students. For example, I know that many of my students like to draw pictures. From there, I will look at the “Building Background” section of the Teacher’s Manual and take that idea and turn it into my own. If the manual says to make a web of things you would see, hear, smell, taste, and feel on a beach and in space, I will first have the students close their eyes and create a mental image of them at the beach and in space. Once they have their mental image, we then have in in-depth discussion of many possibilities that can appeal to our five senses using our schema.
This is an example of an interest inventory my mentor conducted on the first day of first grade with our students.
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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.During my second semester of student teaching, I have always strived to think of new and innovative ways to teach lessons where my students are all actively engaged. In the beginning, I found it virtually impossible to teach a subject to the point where all students are interested – especially when some have much shorter attention spans than others. I have experienced lessons that have gone extremely well and also ones that have not gone well at all. One major lesson that sticks out in my mind as not going as well as planned was our first lesson on the lifecycle of a butterfly. During this lesson I had planned on reading the students a book about the lifecycle where we would pause and talk about the main ideas along the way. From there the students would jot down the main ideas on the PowerPoint planners. The students were very engaged through the first egg stage – most were eagerly raising their hands to participate in our discussions. However, once we got halfway through the second stage (caterpillar) I had lost them. The lesson went on for too long – almost a whole hour! – and the students remained seated the whole time. After the lesson, Brandi and I reflected on the lesson and discussed ways in which I could have adjusted the lesson to keep their attention.
The first subject I took on as a student teacher during Phase III was Spelling. I first taught lessons that used many worksheets. I quickly realized that students do not like to work on worksheet after worksheet. They needed something fun and interesting to spark their interest. After the first week of Spelling, I decided to incorporate one spelling game a week that we held every Thursday. The games would range from BINGO, Barracuda Spelling and Detective Spelling. Because the students were aware that they had to know all their spelling words before playing these games on Thursday, it gave the a stronger drive to work hard the first part of the week and at home to learn their spelling words.
Click here to see an example of a spelling lesson plan used for first graders.
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Learning Environment
The teacher uses an understanidng of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.Many of my Curriculum and Instruction classes at Illinois State University have discussed the advantages of a Democratic classroom. I never understood those advantages until I was able to experience the way a Democratic classroom works. On the first day of school, my mentor teacher sat all the students down on our Reading Rug to establish a set of rules. Together, we all came up with a list of five rules that we all agreed to follow throughout the year. Once those rules were established, my mentor then discussed the behavior management plan. Having the students help create the rules made them feel more like a member of the classroom because they had a say. We also incorporated a classroom pledge called “Our Promise to Each Other” from Debbie Miller. This pledge is posted on the wall where all students can see it and is said every morning before we start the day.
Within those first few days of school, I also was able to observe my mentor teacher incorporate Harry Wong’s routines and procedures to create a warm environment where all students are comfortable because they know what is expected of them. My mentor went through everything from the morning routine to the procedures to take if your pencil breaks during class. Throughout the first couple weeks, these routines and procedures were constantly reinforced to the point where students were eventually held responsible for their own actions.
This is a picture of "Our Promise to Each Other." It is said every morning and serves as a guide to how we treat each other in our classroom.
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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.In order to get your students’ attention, a lesson must be engaging from the moment you say your first words. Throughout my years in the educational program at ISU, I have learned how important it is to have an effective and engaging anticipatory set – “hook” – to begin each lesson. The anticipatory set can be anything from creating a mental image to quoting a famous person. For my multi-cultural lesson on Spain, I began by very enthusiastically saying “Hola clase! Hoy, aprendemos acerca de Espana!” or in English, “Hello class, Today, let’s learn about Spain!” Because my students knew very little about the Spanish language, I immediately grabbed their attention and I could tell they wanted to learn more about what I was speaking and why. During the whole lesson, I taught the students how to say various things in Spanish (hello, good-bye, numbers, alphabet, etc.). I connected the lesson to real-life by comparing the Spanish culture to ours in the United States. I was very proud that this lesson went the way that it did because I could tell that my students were interested and wanted to learn more even after the lesson was over.
In order to be able to effectively engage students through the anticipatory set, you need to be sure that you not only have a good “hook” but that you are showing enthusiasm through your facial expressions and your voice. For example, journal writing in my classroom is something that we do almost every day. Because it is a daily task, it is something that constantly needs to be re-vamped to get students excited to write. We recently changed our ordinary journal writing into Butterfly Journaling. At the beginning of each journal entry, I begin by excitedly saying, “Have any of you seen our caterpillars lately? Look how big they are getting!” with an excited expression on my face. This gets the students excited to observe the caterpillars in their containers and write about everything they see.
Click here to see my multicultural lesson on Spain and the PowerPoint to go along with the lesson.
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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.Communication has always been one of my concerns with teaching. I know how important it is to have a clear communication not only within the lessons that you teach, but with students, parents, and other staff. Since September, I have been working hard to find my “teacher voice” that is all too often needed in a first grade classroom.
Now that I have been teaching more substantial lessons, I have learned how important it is to use a variety of communication techniques to teach a new concept. For example, I recently did a 2-digit addition lesson using math cubes. Having a visual representation helped make the lesson more effective for those who learn through visual communication.
Being a pre-service teacher in Pekin, I also have found how important it is to communicate with other adults. Whether it seems like it or not, parents really do want to know what is going on in their child’s classroom. Since it is unlikely that you are able to meet with every parent on a regular basis, sending letters home with the students is an effective way to communicate with parents. It can be as much as a weekly classroom newsletter or just a friendly note home on occasions.
Communicating with my mentors and liaisons has also been a huge help during this phase of student teaching. If I did not communicate with my mentor on a daily basis, the flow within our classroom would be inconsistent. I also look to her and my liaison for advice when a lesson does not go as planned.
This is an example of the letter I sent home to the parents the beginning of the Spring '08 semester to inform them of my student teaching experience.
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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.Since the beginning of my student teaching phase, I have struggled with the area of assessment and I still struggle with it to this day. I find myself using the same assessment tools multiple times a week. I either end a lesson by completing a worksheet and having the students turn them in or by having a class discussion. An assessment tool that I recently used when teaching the students about Spain was a Venn-Diagram. During the lesson, I taught the students about the Spanish language and the Spanish culture. Throughout the lesson, students were comparing Spain to the United States. After the lesson was complete, I did an informal assessment with the whole class using a Venn-Diagram. We talked about parts of the Spanish culture that were the same and parts that were different than our culture in the United States.
As an on-going formal and summative assessment tool, we have portfolios for each of our students which we call “Koality Kid” folders. In these portfolios we graph many of our formal assessments: weekly spelling tests, reading comprehension and vocabulary tests, math timed tests, and behavior calendars. I find using these portfolios to be successful in a few ways. First, I think that these folders are a great way for students to track their own progress. Since we graph our tests each week, students can see how well they are progressing from one week to the next. These portfolios also serve as a useful tool when conducting parent-teacher conferences. When there is an area a student is struggling in, parents are able to easily see on the graph how well his/her student is doing in each content area.
This is a picture of our individual portfolios that we use in
first grade. We call them "Koality Kid" portfolios
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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.As an intern at C.B. Smith, I have learned first-hand how beneficial building relationships with other staff and interns can be. At the beginning and end of every day, I am constantly talking with my fellow interns in my carpool about the events that happened throughout the day. We talk about anything from ideas for upcoming lessons, to obstacles we overcame throughout the day. Being able to hear that I am not the only one going through this great roller coaster of student teaching helps me cope during the down times we experience. Daily reflections with my Phase I&II mentor teachers has also helped out a lot. My mentors have been able to give me the confidence I need to know that I can be a great teacher. If a lesson goes wrong, we talk about it and make a plan of what to do the next time around to ensure the lesson goes better. C.B. Smith has a wonderful faculty who are always welcoming to all of the student teachers in the building. During lunch breaks and before and after school, I converse with other teachers in my grade level about different lesson plan ideas and they often give me good advice for the future. I also talk to the principal, secretary, reading recovery, and other faculty whenever I see them.
This is a picture of other interns and me collaborating and talking
about our substitute folders and their contents.
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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 opporunities to grow professionally.Throughout student teaching, I have learned how vital flexibility can be. One of my most recent experiences with an unexpected event came this past week. To my (and my mentor teacher’s) surprise, our school district decided to give all math tests out to be completed by the following Friday. Not only did the district give us one week to complete the test, we realized that much of he material had not yet been covered in our classroom. At the last minute, I had to change all my lesson plans and adjust them to teach the math skills that have not yet be taught in an effective way. This meant that I had to be flexible and move some reading lessons I had planned into the following week to allow time for math instruction.
I also have experienced a few lessons that did not always go as well as planned. Again, this lesson goes back to math. After teaching what I thought was an effective lesson on two-digit addition, much to my surprise, my students did not perform as well on the assessment as I thought they would. Instead of jumping straight into two-digit subtraction the following day, I had to adjust my lesson and re-teach the skill. After working hard on two-digit addition for a few days, my students had conquered the task at hand and it was then time to move on to two-digit subtraction.
Click here to see a lesson plan on 2-digit addition.
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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.During this year of student teaching, we were told that we eventually needed to come up with our own personal philosophy on teaching. I honestly did not think of what my own personal philosophy would be until it was time to reflect upon this certain virtue. To help create my own philosophy, I reflected upon my many experiences this past school year. I have thought about what I have learned about a democratic classroom and the many different learning styles. I also realized that each school in Pekin Public School District 108 has their own mission statement. As a teacher, you should support your school’s mission statement in your own philosophy. In what ways is this mission statement being reflected upon in your classroom? Many times and educator will switch school districts, and in this case, the mission statement will change. You should be able to tweak your personal philosophy throughout the years to fit the new statements.
At the beginning of the school year, during my Phase I placement, my mentor teacher had the students create our own classroom philosophy called “Our Promise to Each Other.” While creating this philosophy my mentor stressed that we need to make sure we treat each other with the same respect that we want to be treated with. There are no “stupid” questions or answers, and we are all here for the same purpose: to learn. This promise served as a vital tool to foster a safe learning environment where all students are treated equally and are not afraid to participate.
This is a picture of the mission statement foundat C.B. Smith school.
