Introduction

            People know of Salem, Massachusetts as “The Witch Town” but I know Salem as my home. I was born and raised in Salem and plan to return to the Northshore after graduation.

            My older brother Danny plays a large part in why I chose to be a teacher. Danny has special needs and attended the Northshore Education Consortium in Beverly while he was in school. I would occasionally go to the school and I always noticed how dedicated Danny’s teachers were and how determined they were to make sure Danny achieved and accomplished success in and out of the classroom. I began to notice how each teacher advocated for the success and achievement of their students and how devoted these teachers were to help change the world through children. Therefore, I came to the realization that teaching was what I truly wanted to do.

            When I began applying for colleges I asked Danny’s teachers what college would assist me to help reach my goals of becoming an elementary school teacher. Each teacher instantly replied with Wheelock College. I was immediately attracted to Wheelock due to the location in Boston, the close-knit community, and the work Wheelock is involved in to help children succeed.

            At Wheelock, I am a human development major with a focus in sociology. I believe that my major has helped me understand how social categories (class, gender, sex, age, religion, and race) affect human attitudes, actions, and opportunities. By being able to understand the structure of society I feel I am able to actively teach children without a bias or prejudice mind set.

            I currently work at Wheelock College Library as a librarian’s assistant as well as Longwood Medical Area Child Care Center as an assistant teacher. Due to my dedication to children as well as attending Wheelock, I currently work at the Northshore Education Consortium as a substitute teacher during vacations from college and a paraprofessional during the summer program.

            My pre-practicum was within an inclusive second grade class at the Driscoll Elementary School in Brookline, Massachusetts and my full practicum was within a third grade class at the Joseph Lee Elementary School in Dorchester, Massachusetts.  After completing my practicum within Dorchester, I came to the conclusion that I would like to work within the inner city after graduation.

            Although I would like to work within a urban school district, I am planning to return to school within the next two years to receive my a master’s degree and teaching license to teach students with moderate to severe disabilities.

Educational Philosophy

• I believe that each child within a classroom is a unique individual who needs a safe, nurturing, and motivating atmosphere in order to grow and develop intellectually, emotionally, phsycially, and socially.
• I believe for a child to reach their full potential within a classroom there must be constant communication and collaboration between home and school.
• I believe that teaching is a lifelong learning process where an educator should frequently reflect, improve, and refine their teaching techniques and beliefs.

Standard 1

	Standard 1. Advocacy for Social Justice
1.1	Attentive to inequalities associated with race, social class, gender, language, and other social categories
1.2	Consciously look for alternatives to established educational practices that support the learning, development, and academic achievement of children whose backgrounds place them outside the dominant culture
1.3	Employ multicultural, anti-racist, anti-bias educational practices that foster deep engagement in learning and high academic achievement

            The advocacy for social justice standard explains how crucial it is for an educator to acknowledge the diversity within their classrooms and still create an environment which is open to the differences of all social categories while guiding children to achieve success. A teacher must teach children to accept and appreciate differences seen in others and their selves. This can be achieved by creating an atmosphere which does not leave the situation open for prejudice or stereotypical material to be used.

            As an educator, it is crucial to understand inequalities within social categories and to teach to all students. By understanding that scripted curriculum and outdated teaching material are not geared towards the non-dominant culture I must be open to the idea of finding ways to teach the curriculum for all children to succeed: not just children within the dominant culture. In the future I would like to work in a multicultural environment, which means that understanding how to adapt my curriculum in a non-bias manner is essential for my future students to achieve within my classroom.

            Caroyln Orange, an expert teacher, explains how imperative understanding cultural differences is in order to be a successful teacher:

Insightful teachers know the importance of being knowledgeable and respectful of cultural diversity…These teachers incorporate a variety of strategies to bridge the gap between the cultures, such as respecting students, attaching value to their responses, making classroom activities more meaningful by incorporating students’ life experiences, values and culture, and by rejecting a cultural deficit model of diversity. (p. 66)

Teachers must understand that in the classrooms of America not two students will share the same ethnic background. Within classrooms in America, there are children who are from different countries all over the world, who speak different languages, and who practice different religions.  If the curriculum does not reflect the social categories the child is interested in, it may be difficult for the child to relate to the teaching material. If a child can not relate to what is being taught then they are not learning and reaching their full potential. Therefore it is fundamental for a teacher to be able to understand the importance of differences and incorporate differences within their classroom to be an effective educator of the children who will be representing this nation after they complete college and join the work force.

            Before taking Racial and Cultural Identities my sophomore year, I believed that I was very open-minded and that I was not prejudice or racist. While taking the class, I learned that by not acknowledging differences in social categories I was being prejudice in a way. I learned in RCI that by ignoring social categories I am actually ignoring who a person is. In my final essay of RCI, I reflected upon an audio recording of questions I answered at the beginning of the course. By re-listening to the audio, I came to the realization that in order to be an effective teacher I would need learn, understand, and accept inequalities instead of pretending they do not exist. (Artifact 1.1) I believe that I have met standard 1.1 by understanding that social categories need to be explored in school to allow a child to feel comfortable within their own skin.

            Patricia Gandara, an advocator for students in the non-dominant group, explains that educators should be aware of racial categories within their students in order to help their students develop into strong adults (2008). She explains that when teachers explain they are not racist teachers because they only see children, not their social categories, these teachers are actually imposing on that child’s learning and success. She explains that “membership in a racial group shapes experience, access to social and cultural capital and perspectives,” (p. 44). This means that the racial group of a child defines who the child is and does affect the child’s learning. But as an educator, it is our job to acknowledge these social categories and help the child accept and learn about their racial category while also learning and accepting those in different categories.

            During my full practicum I chose to focus on nutrition for the unit which I would create and teach. While researching the project, I began to notice that a majority of the foods explained in books were apples, oranges, pears, and other American based foods. Knowing that my classroom at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester was majority Hispanic or African American I wanted to find a way to integrate different cultures in my unit. I began to research children’s books which focused on different cultures. I found several books which explored different foods within different cultures. Artifact 1.2 is a lesson plan of a book I read, Everybody Cooks Rice which is a story of a young girl who travels from house to house in her multicultural neighborhood and samples rice from each home. The main character learns that everybody cooks rice but in different ways. My students were engaged in the lesson and were surprised to learn how many different ways rice could be made. By bringing multicultural books into my classroom during my nutrition unit, I feel that I was accomplishing the goal of standard 1.3: to focus on anti-racist, anti-biased, and multicultural practices within the classroom.

            During my practicum I was able to see personal  how many classrooms do not have material geared to students who are minorities. I feel that it is crucial to find ways to incorporate an anti-bias and multicultural environment within the classroom in order to allow students to realize that there are differences within the world and to become comfortable with the differences. I feel that to be an advocate for social justice I will need to make sure that I am aware of how I present information (without baises) and what materials I use in my multicultural in order to help all children reach achievement.

Works Cited

Gandara, P. (2008). Everyday Anti-Racism: Getting Real about Race in School. In M. Pollock
            (Ed.), “Strengthening Student Identity in School Programs” (p. 44-49). New York, NY:   The New Press.

Orange,  C. (2000). 25 Biggest Mistakes TeachersMake and How to Avoid Them. Thousand
            Oaks, California: Corwin Press.

Standard 1 Artifact 1

 

 

Standard 1 Artifact 2

Standard 2

	Standard 2. Understanding all Children in their many Dimensions
2.1	Know students as individuals, as learners, and be able to relate to them in a variety of ways
2.2	Be familiar with the cultures, histories, values of families
2.3	Know attributes of individual children/families with whom they work
2.4	Aware of range of students’ special needs and seek out information concerning strengths/resources to address developmental and learning needs
2.5	Use knowledge of second language acquisition, developmental variations, disabilities to support physical, emotional, social, cognitive, linguistic, intellectual, and creative development

            A teacher’s job is not just simply teaching a group of children the required curriculum for a particular grade; a teacher’s job is much more complex than that. A teacher must view her classroom as a combination of individual learners rather than a grouping of children who learn in somewhat similar ways. By understanding that each child within her classroom is an individual learner rather than a member of a group a teacher is able to identify and weave each child’s specific needs, interests, and cultures into her curriculum.

            I believe when a teacher takes the initiative to learn about her individual students, as well as their families, a teacher is provided with a improved insight of a child’s life she would have otherwise been oblivious to. A teacher is then able to utilize this information by transforming it from scattered bits of information about individual students into teaching techniques to reach all students within a classroom. She also must take this information to create engaging lessons that will trigger interest and curiosity about a subject for her students. Educators and experts in the field of curriculum development Tomlison and McTighe (2006) agree with this concept and explore this idea by stating that for effective teaching to take place teachers must “attend to at least four elements: whom they teach (students), where they teach (learning environment), what they teach (content), and how the teach (instruction). If teachers lose sight of any one of these elements and cease investing effort in it, the whole fabric of their work is damaged and the quality of learning impaired,” (p 2).

            During my sophomore year at Wheelock I was enrolled in Teaching Reading. For this class, I went to the King Elementary School in Cambridge, Massachusetts to tutor one student on four separate occasions. During the first session, I completed a ‘Reading Interests Inventory’ (artifact 2.1) with my tutee, May. The inventory asked several questions about May’s personal interests as well as what genre of books she found interesting and fun. During this meeting I conducted other reading tests with May in order to provide myself with an insight of May’s May’s strengths and weaknesses in reading. While completing these tests, I notice that May often ignored the use of contractions within reading (for example, if a sentence said ‘wouldn’t’ she would read it as ‘would’). In order to choose a book for a guided reading lesson I would create to help May with this flaw, I referred to the inventory to choose a book which correlated with May’s interests. By looking at her interests, I chose a book from the children’s mystery series, Boxcar Children, to use for my guided reading lesson. By having the inventory I was able to use a book to teach my guided reading lesson based upon her specific interests, rather than a random book she may have not enjoyed. I knew I choose the correct book for May when I only planned for May to read the first chapter but she asked if she could continue reading once my guided reading lesson plan was completed.

            I offered to attend my full-time practicum the day before students arrived to help my supervising practitioner prepare her classroom for the students. On this day, I did help her clean, organize, and prepare the classroom for the 21 third-graders who would enter the room the following day. But her main goal was to find each student’s cumulative record. Artifact 2.3 is my journal entry of this day which explains that after organizing the folders, my supervising practitioner requested that I find each student’s folder who had an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and read through the IEP. She explained that these students would spend a majority of classroom time in the resource room (a room outside of the classroom where they would receive small-group instruction from a special education teacher) but it was still critical to be aware of which students had specific needs within the classroom.

            While organizing each child’s permanent record, my supervising practitioner asked that I write down each child’s name along with their reading level, math level, and other specific notes about the child left from their previous teacher. She explained that she found it valuable to have this information in close reach: in order to understand each individual student within her classroom. While in my seminar for full practicum we received a different type of inventory which stressed an importance upon a child’s culture and family life: rather than their academic performance. After readjusting the inventory I received in practicum to emphasize the information I found the most critical to learn about each individual student, I combined the previously developed class list into artifact 2.4, the class list I used throughout the semester.

            During my full-practicum, my supervising practitioner was absent several days throughout the semester due to family problems. Because our classroom schedule remained the same on each day and I was fully acquainted with the students, I chose to teach each lesson instead of the substitute. One morning when my supervising practitioner was out, I noticed that the resource room teacher did not arrive to take the children who receive services out of the classroom for math. I began the lesson (about adding three digit numbers) and received notice that this teacher was absent today and I would be teaching the students on my own. Previous to this, the students had left the room for each lesson that was taught and I had never experienced working with this group of children. At the conclusion of the lesson I asked for the students who left the room, as well as a few students who were struggling, to join me in the back of the room. Artifact 2.5 is my journal entry from this lesson where I explain how I adjusted the lesson for these students. By reading the IEP’s in advance, I was able to make a quick decision of how I would adjust this lesson for these students. By using manipulative and a visual chart, I was able to find the resources necessary to reach their specific learning needs.

             I believe that within this standard I still would like to develop my skills upon how to teach students with IEP’s. Even though during the summer I work with children who are on IEP’s for moderate to severe special needs I do not have ample amounts of experience adjusting curriculum for students who are on IEP’s due to learning disabilities. Once I have my own classroom, I know that I will have several students who have learning disabilities and are on IEP’s and I must be able to adjust my lesson plans for these students. Therefore, I am planning to read “The Complete Learning Disabilities Handbook” by Joan Harwell and Rebecca Jackson in order to develop skills and strategies to ensure that my students with learning disabilities are receiving the appropriate resources to accomplish all goals within my classroom. Overall, I believe a teacher has the ability to teach her students effectively once she takes the initiative to learn, discover, and understand how each individual student’s family structure, academic and social needs, as well as personal interests affect each child's learning within school. By combining all of these elements as well as linking them within her curriculum, a teacher is able to provide each child with the most efficient and valuable education they can receive.

Works Cited

Harwell, J; Jackson, R. (2008). The Complete Learning Disabilities Handbook: Ready-to-Use Strategies and Activities for Teaching Students with Learning Disabilities. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Tomlinson, C.A. & McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating Differentiated Instruction and

Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.             

Standard 2 Artifact 1

Standard 2 Artifact 2

Standard 2 Artifact 3

Standard 2 Artifact 4

 

Standard 2 Artifact 5

Standard 3

	Standard 3. Knowledge of Content and Integrated Curriculum
3.1	Know, understand and use central concepts and tools of inquiry appropriate in subject matter and age/grade level
3.2	Create meaningful learning experiences to develop children’s understanding of subject matter and increase skills
3.3	Plan integrated units of curriculum, instruction, assessment based on knowledge of subject matter, curriculum goals, and developmentally appropriate practices among the children’s families, communities, and cultures.

            Curriculum informs teachers what information needs to be taught to a specific grade within an academic year. It is the teacher’s job to be familiarized with the content of the curriculum in order to provide effective instruction to all students within her classroom. A teacher should be able to identify appropriate subject, grade, and age level techniques and material to teach her students appropriately and effectively.  An efficient way to do this is by weaving a curriculum goal throughout multiple subjects taught as well as combining student’s personal interests and cultural with subject matter to increase their enthusiasm about learning.

            In hopes to diminish the achievement gap and raise test scores, many school districts have reached out to scripted curriculum with hopes to enhance student learning. Scripted curriculum often provides teachers with a dry, bland script to follow with dull, hollow busy-work to be supplied to students. I believe for an educator to be an expert in the profession, they must be able to dismantle scripted curriculum, isolate the main and crucial parts of the subject matter, and recreate the curriculum in a meaningful and appropriate way for students.

While in my practicum, I was required to create and implement a unit (five lessons) for my third graders. My supervising practitioner felt that I should create a unit on a topic which would interest the students, rather than expand on a topic the students were learning in class. Each day, I was appalled to watch my students eat brownies, potato chips, and cookies: therefore, I chose to create unit to teach students about healthy eating. To be reassured that nutrition was within the curriculum I looked the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for Health. By doing this, I came across a nutrition standard which explained that “students will gain the knowledge and skills to select a diet that supports health and reduces the risk of illness and future chronic diseases… 3.2: Use the USDA Food Guide Pyramid and its three major concepts of balance, variety, and moderation to plan healthy meals and snacks,” (p 28). Once I discovered that nutrition was a subject taught within the third grade curriculum for Massachusetts, I began to research nutrition and the food pyramid for my unit. I made sure that while I was reaching, I fully understood the content I was teaching. I also made sure that I presented the information into grade and age level appropriate material for my students.While creating my unit, I thought of how I would be able to incorporate my unit throughout different subjects, besides health. Artifact 3.1 is a copy of the overview I used for this unit which explores how I incorporated science, reading, writing, math, and art into my nutrition unit.  By integrating my mini-unit throughout different subjects I was able to expand students’ knowledge of nutrition just past the idea of what nutrition is and what healthy and unhealthy are; I was able to teach students how different foods are created as well as how to use decision making skills to maintain a healthy diet.

            Standard 3 also addresses the concept of supplying students with stimulating lessons in order to increase their understanding of a subject as well as develop upon previously developed skills. Within my full practicum, there was not a specific writing curriculum used within the school. As a result of this, my supervising practitioner chose to teach writing by focusing on the six traits of writing: ideas, organization, voice, sentence fluency, conventions, and word choice. During my leadership week, word choice was the specific trait the students were working on. One writing lesson I taught (artifact 3.2), I focused upon the effectiveness of using sensory words within writing. To do this I first asked children to draw a picture of a monster. After that, I asked children to fill out a chart to describe what the monster looked like, smelled like, tasted like, sounded like, and felt like. After this, students were asked to take this chart and their picture and write a paragraph to explain what the monster looked like. Once the activity was complete, I hung the monsters up on the board in order to allow all students to look at each monster. I than read the class the paragraph written about the monster and asked students if they would be able to identify the monsters: based solely upon the artist’s drawing of the monster and the author’s word choice of the monster.

            I chose this lesson plan to use with my students due to the fact that I knew my classroom was filled with students who had a strong interest in drawing. I also chose to have the students draw monsters because the seventeen boys within the classroom currently were deeply involved in stories surrounding monsters. By taking the curriculum for the class and changing it into a memorable and intriguing experience for my students, I feel I was able to teach sensory words more explicitly to the students rather than just telling the students to ‘use their senses and write a story’. For a few students within the classroom, they often needed direct instruction of how to improve their school work rather than just a general lesson plan. Instead of just ignoring these students and deeming them as “unsuccessful” I attempted to create a lesson in order to help students develop their writing skills while using their personal interests and direct instruction to reach this goal. Educators and experts in the field of curriculum development, Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe (2006) explain that some teachers identify students as “successful” and “unsuccessful” based upon how a student performs in a class with the implemented curriculum, instead of readjusting future lessons to provide the student with the ability to succeed, (p 18).  Because I was able to adjust my lesson plan to help all students succeed I feel I taught a successful lesson.

            Once I have my own classroom, I believe I will continue to develop upon this standard: specifically by connecting my lesson with my student’s culture and families into my lesson plans. Within my practicum, questionnaires were sent home the first day of school which would provide us with information about each student’s home life but few of these were returned. My supervising practitioner explained to me that when she began teaching she would call each student’s home to introduce herself as well as ask questions to find out information about each student instead of sending home a questionnaire. By doing this, I can learn about each specific child’s interests and home life in order to enhance my curriculum to provide an equal opportunity for all children to succeed. I believe that children also have the ability to succeed within a classroom when a teacher understands the content she will teach and has the ability to expand the content throughout her curriculum.

Works Cited

Tomlinson, C.A. & McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating Differentiated Instruction and

Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Department of Education (1999). Massachusetts Comprehensive Health Curriculum Framework.

Malden, MA; Massachusetts Department of Education.

Standard 3 Artifact 1

Standard 3 Artifact 2

Standard 4

	Standard 4. Educational Practices that foster learning, development, and achievement for all of the nation’s children.
4.1	Use teaching strategies and educational practices that develop children’s capacities to think critically, analytically and imaginatively and extend their knowledge and understanding of the world
4.2	Provide multiple ways for children to deepen grasp of concepts, stretch thinking, express understandings, & learn critical skills
4.3	Search for appropriate materials, experiment with new technologies, collaborate with specialists and colleagues and consult with families and community members to meet the instructional needs of students
4.4	Establish caring, inclusive, stimulating, & safe learning communities where children feel they belong and can assume responsibility, take intellectual risks, make mistakes, explore alternatives, participate in decision-making, and work collaboratively & independently
4.5	Understand principles of effective classroom management and human motivation and behavior
4.6	Understand cognitive processes associated with various kinds of learning and how these processes can be stimulated
4.7	Understand first and second language development and role of language in learning
4.8	Understand principles, techniques, advantages and limitations associated with various teaching strategies
4.9	Communicate effectively within many domains (oral, written, mathematical/symbolic, non-verbal, audiovisual, computer-based technologies)
4.10	Model effective communication strategies in conveying information, asking and responding to questions

When new students enter a teacher’s classroom each fall, it is the job of the teacher to learn about each child’s strength, weakness, culture, and personalities. A teacher must create an environment which allows all students to prosper, whether it is academically or socially. By teaching students how to think critical, take risks, and build confidence a teacher has the ability to provide students with the knowledge, skill, and character to succeed in their future learning, career choice, and life accomplishments.

I believe that teachers should view lesson planning as road trips: the objective and goals of the lesson are the travel destination, the students are drivers of the car, and the teacher provides a map for the expedition. During the road trip, each driver has the option to take different routes: each road may be different but each road is guaranteed to bring the driver to the final destination. During the journey it is plausible that the driver will become lost, frustrated, or give up. But the driver will always have the map to provide the support and guidance necessary to reach the final destination of the trip. I believe this comparison explains how important it is for teachers to provide students with the skills, strategies, and practices necessary in order to excel in school because they will not always have a teacher guiding the way. By teaching children how to be agents of their own success, an educator is teaching more than just curriculum: they are teaching the students life-skills.

I value this standard because I believe creating a community within a classroom is crucial in order for learning to take place. Once a child feels that they can trust the teacher and other students within the classroom, the child will be less afraid to ask questions, take risks, and make mistakes. A teacher is also responsible for creating ways for all students to learn. Teachers should use manipulatives, songs, dances, games, or any other interactive and appropriate material to enhance student learning.

It is common for teachers to believe that students should adapt their learning styles to the educator’s teaching style: but within a classroom not all students learn identically. Howard Gardner (2004), developmental psychologist and professor, created the Multiple Intelligence Theory which explores the ideas of eight different intelligences: bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, naturalist, and spatial. Most curriculums within schools are based off of a linguistic/logical-mathematical intellectual approach: but it is highly unlikely that all students within a class are exceedingly developed within the linguistic or logical-mathematic intelligences. It is the job of the teacher to incorporate all intelligences within her lesson planning in order to reassure that each student has the ability to thrive within the class, regardless of their dominate intelligence skill.

During my full practicum in a third grade classroom at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester we relied on scripted curriculum for English language arts and mathematics. For ELA, the Reading Street curriculum was in place. Reading Street provides an outline of what material is to be taught on what specific day and also provides a script of what the teacher should say. One required section of the curriculum was a listening comprehension exercise used to help students develop the necessary background knowledge for a story which would be read the following day. The teacher is required to read a lengthily, dull passage to the entire class while periodically stopping to ask questions. During my leadership week, the Reading Street curriculum centered on a story based upon house building in colonial New England. The listening comprehension/background knowledge building exercise for the week explained different types of houses built when the settlers first arrived in America. I knew the story the rest of our week was based upon the creation of a New England home and that this selection would provide students with knowledge they would need to rely on for the next few days. In order to help my students understand this subject more in-depth, I printed out pictures of different types and aspects of houses that would be explored in the listening comprehension (Artifact 1) to provide a better insight of this subject to the children. Standard 4.1 explores the idea that a teacher should use strategies to help students develop knowledge and think intrinsically about the particular subject. I knew these students were visual learners and I attempted to add visuals to each lesson I taught.  Each time I spoke about a home, I showed the picture of the homes to the students so they could develop a deeper understanding of the subject.

As previously explained, each day Reading Street suggests what material will be taught. My supervising practitioner and I always agreed upon a variety of resources to help children learn skills throughout different activities; at times I felt that a majority of the work was ‘busy work’ in order to keep students occupied throughout the school day. Abruptly, my supervising practitioner missed several days of school due to an emergency and I was left alone, with a substitute, to teach for a week. Artifact 2 outlines what I taught each day for ELA based upon the Reading Street curriculum. The goal for this specific week was to determine how to solve different problems which may occur. Knowing this bit of information, I created an activity for children who needed extended work. This activity required students to draw a picture of a problem they have had and then write about it. I feel that students were able to learn how to take a subject within the story (Prudy’s problem and how she solved it) and deepen their understanding to apply it to their own lives.

Within my full practicum classroom, seven students were considered English Language Learners. For these students, English was often only spoken when they were at school and their native first language was spoken at home. Therefore, school provided most of their first language development. I noticed that with these students, they often had difficulty understanding concepts which were verbally spoken to the class and often needed information provided visually in order to succeed. Before teaching a math lesson within the TERC Investigation curriculum I read through the script and felt that the concept of the lesson may be difficult for the ELL students, as well as some other students, in the class. The goal was for students to find the difference between 2 numbers as well as the difference between a number and 100. For example, the distance between 10 and 100 can either be 90 or 110 and the distance between 90 and 110 is 20. I realized that the concept of ‘jumping’ from 90 to 110 may be difficult for some students due to the fact that some students may not understand how 90 to 110 could be 20 if 20 is a much smaller number than 90 and 110 and the idea of ‘jumping’ actually meant ‘how many numbers are in-between’. Therefore, I decided that I needed to make this lesson more visual for the students. I decided to bring these math problems to life and have students represent numbers on the number lines. I was than visually able to explain to students how to ‘jump’ from one number to another. 3 is the lesson plan I adjusted for this lesson which explains my adjustment more in-depth.

During my first day and a half of leadership week, I had difficult managing behavior and motiving students to complete work within the classroom. Two boys took advantage of the teacher shift within the classroom and disobeyed our classroom and school rules. During lunch on my second day, my supervising practitioner suggested I created contracts with these two specific boys in order to create a calm environment. One of the students she had retained the year before, and felt that contracts had worked well in the past. I felt that creating a behavior contract was extreme but I knew that in order to teach the other 20 students within the class I had to handle this type of behavior in a different way. After lunch, my third graders went to science, where I went and explained to the science teacher that I would be speaking to the two boys separately and quickly. Even though I spoke to the boys individually, they both understood that their behavior was inappropriate and that we were going to change it. Artifact 4 is the copies of the behavior contracts which the two students helped me fill out and signed. For the three days following the contracts, the students maintained appropriate behavior. I believe that because of this circumstance I have met standard 4.5. I knew that in order to have an effective classroom management for leadership week I needed to provide motivation to students who seemed to lack that.

During my pre-practicum experience within a second grade classroom at the Driscoll Elementary School in Brookline the classroom atmosphere and environment was extremely different. Each morning, the students would engage in a thirty to forty-five minute ‘Morning Meeting’. During morning meeting, the schedule of the day was discussed, games were played, stories were shared, and a classroom community was formed. The students would sit in their ‘circle spots’ where they sat in a circle or ‘rug spots’ where they sat in lines on the rugs. Artifact 5 is a photo of the rug area. A majority of lessons were taught on the rug: providing children with a close, personal, and quiet learning experience.

The classroom also had ‘Citizen Awards’ which were given out by students for students throughout the day. If one student helped another student with a math problem, the student who needed the help would fill out a Citizen Award to show their appreciation to that student for their help. The Citizen Awards were kept in a basket within a separate desk and after the awards were filled out they were placed into a pail, which is pictured in artifact 6. Citizen Awards were read out loud during Morning Meeting on Friday’s to honor the students who had been good citizens of the classroom for the week. I believe that throughout my two field experiences I have a firm grasp upon how to create a safe and comfortable environment within a classroom. At Joseph Lee the students had difficulty bonding with one another and would often waste class time bickering and arguing with one another. On the other hand, the Driscoll School provided students with Morning Meeting in order to express their feelings and build relationship and trust with one another. I believe I will integrate Morning Meeting into my classroom in the future due to the advantages I feel it provides to a classroom. To make Morning Meeting successful, I plan to read The Morning Meeting Book by Roxann Kriete in order to gain more knowledge upon this subject.

I believe that this standard is one I am still striving to achieve. Within my classroom at the Joseph Lee school I feel that I was able to understand why this standard is important. Our students struggled academically and many fell below grade level. I believe that because the curriculum was not adjusted for these particular students and because the bad-tension between students overpowered the ability to build relationships within classroom, the students were unable to succeed within school. I feel that I will continue to grow upon this standard once I have my own classroom because I have seen how important classroom environment is to student growth, learning, and development.

Works Cited

Kriete, R; Bechtel, L. (2002). The Morning Meeting Book. Greenfield, MA: Northeast Foundation
            for Children.

Gardner, H. (2005). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligence. New York, NY: Basic

Books

Standard 4 Artifact 1

Cave

Wigwam

Thatched Roof

It was rare for homes to have windows

Saltbox

Georgian Style Home

Dormer

"Widow's Walks"

Half Faced Camp

House made with a thatch roof, mud, and an added chimney

Standard 4 Artifact 2

Standard 4 Artifact 3

 

The are outline in red is the adjustment to my lesson

Standard 4 Artifact 4

Standard 4 Artifact 5

Standard 4 Artifact 6

Standard 5

 

	Standard 5. Assessment in a multi-racial, multicultural democracy
5.1	Understand that assessment is an integral part of teaching and that children’s developmental and academic interests, accomplishments and challenges should drive their daily instructional decisions
5.2	Know the different uses, advantages, limitations and biases of different types of assessments and understand that appropriate assessments must consider cultural, familial and community contexts from which children come
5.3	Know how to use a variety of formal and informal assessment tools and strategies to monitor and promote each student’s learning and development
5.4	Use formative and summative assessments to determine students’ understanding in each subject area, and be aware of technological tools that can facilitate assessment

         

            Assessments are the foundation to any classroom. If used properly, a teacher can be provided with an overview of her class in order to understand what material her students have mastered and what subjects needs further instruction. A teacher should not only use formal assessments such as tests to monitor her students, but she should also use informal assessments such as check lists, observations, or conversations with the students to assess their knowledge on a particular subject.

            Within teaching, many teachers use assessments incorrectly. The assessments are used to see who either passed or failed but the ideas of which students understand the topic are never explored. Experts in the field of education, Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins (2005) created the lesson plan template known as Backward Design. The idea of Backward Design was for teachers to create their lessons with the assessment identified first. Therefore a teacher would identify the results (objectives, outcomes, and goals) of the lesson before designing the actual lesson. By knowing what the assessment of the lesson will be before creating the lesson plan, a teacher is able to recognize if the flow of the lesson will meet these expectations.

            By using the concept of Backwards Design, a teacher should be using assessment as a tool for students understand rather than a way to measure a child’s competency for a specific subject/concept. Connoisseurs in curriculum design and assessment, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey (2007), explain how formative assessments (ongoing assessments, reviews, and observations within a classroom during lessons) are used to check student’s understandings throughout a unit or course and also allow a teacher to adjust future lesson planning to help students understand more efficiently within a subject, while summative assessments (tests at the end of a unit or course) are used primarily for grades and to measure what a child has or has not already learned, (p 4). An educator needs to make the shift in realizing that assessment is a compilation of evidence providing an insight to a child’s understanding throughout a unit or year rather than one test used to determine what a student can and cannot do during that specific instance.

For children to learn within a classroom, the material being presented to the class must be academically appropriate for the children. It is impossible for a teacher to gauge the understanding of her students within the classroom without material to base her planning of. By using summative assessments, the teacher can be reassured that a child has a full grasp upon the curriculum and that her teaching is meaningful and successful for the students. I believe that in order for assessment to be accurately used by a teacher, the assessment should be based upon a child’s ongoing understanding rather than retained knowledge at a specific moment. I do believe that summative assessments should be used in order to identify what students have learned for a specific unit or subject, but if formative assessments are used throughout the learning process a summative assessment may not be difficult for students who have already mastered the knowledge required for the specific unit. Formative assessments are important to use throughout lessons due to the fact that they allow teachers to view how students are learning throughout a specific lesson which helps a teacher adjust her future lessons to her student’s needs. Rick Stiggins (2005) explains that when a teacher provides feedback to students through the use of formative assessments “students are inside the assessment process, watching themselves grow, feeling in control of their success, and believing that continued success is within reach if they keep trying,” (p 327-328) rather than feeling unsuccessful when they receive a poor grade after a summative assessment.

During my sophomore year at Wheelock I was enrolled in Teaching Reading. For this class, I went to the King Elementary School in Cambridge, Massachusetts to tutor one student on four separate occasions. During one visit I preformed the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) on my tutee, May. This reading test is correlated with a system of reading levels; each student’s independent reading level is determined according to accuracy, fluency, and comprehension based on a short story.  Artifact 5.1 is May’s DRA test after she independently read The Flood, a short story about a boy whose basement flooded due to a near-by river overflowing. May was able to understand the concept of the rivers, rain, floods, and how these affected the activities which the young boy wanted to engage in outside. But, certain children may not understand how water engulfing a person’s house is connected to an overflowing river. Within my full-practicum at the Joseph Lee Elementary School in Dorchester, Massachusetts, I tested a majority of my third grade students using DRA’s. Many of the students who were strong readers performed poorly on this assessment due to their own personal cultural and community differences. Students did not recognize character names or the concept of a pet store and therefore were not able to concentrate or comprehend on what the story was about. Standard 4.2 explains that teachers should understand how a child’s direct surroundings can directly affect a child’s assessment in a negative way and I believe that by having a variety of children take the DRA’s I have seen how limitations on assessments can negatively impact a child who would otherwise succeed.

            Standard 5.3 focuses on understanding how to use formal as well as informal assessment within the classroom. During my time at Joseph Lee Elementary, we followed the TERC investigations mathematics curriculum. This scripted curriculum provides educators with an outline of how to assess for understanding informally throughout a lesson as well as provide students with the ability to perform well on formal assessments. TERC suggests making checklists of what objectives the teacher aims to have her students reach. Artifact 5.2 is a copy of a checklist I used after I taught a lesson about place value and 1,000 charts. I was able to walk around the classroom and check off each objective I wanted the students to reach. After the math lesson was completed, I was able to look back upon the checklist and determine which students understood the concept of 1,000 and place value and which students needed further instruction. By using checklists for lessons, I was able to assess each child individually throughout the unit rather than on the final assessment at the end.

            I believe that throughout my classes at Wheelock I have gained a concept of how crucial assessing for understanding is within a classroom. I feel that my supervising practitioner based her classroom solely upon a summative assessment which would be given at the end of a unit. I believe that this approach negatively affected many of the students’ math abilities within the classroom. My supervising practitioner did not use any type of formative assessments (she did not collect any work to assess or use any checklists to identify who had or had not reached desired outcomes of a lesson) When it came time to grade the end of the unit assessment, we would we would discover multiple children who appeared to have no understanding for the material which was taught. By the time this was discovered, the curriculum suggested beginning a new unit. This meant that there was no way to go back and re-teach what the students should have known. I believe that if summative and formative assessments were used throughout the unit, and not just waiting until the summative assessment at the end of the unit, my supervising practitioner and I would have had the chance to adjust future lesson planning to help each student master the subject. I believe that my experience within the field has provided me with the ability to understand and reach this standard.

Works Cited

Fisher, D. & Frey, N. (2007). Checking for Understanding. Alexandria, VA: Association for

Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Stiggins, R. (2005). From Formative Assesment to Assessment FOR Learning: A Path to Success in

Standards-Based Schools, Phil Delta Kappan, Vol. 87, No. 04, 324-328.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.