Reflection of Artifacts and State Standards
Standard 1
Demonstrates ability to enhance academic performance and support for implementation of the school district's student achievement goals.
One of the biggest struggles I think teachers face would be getting students to truly believe they are capable of greatness. Often times when doing self assessment students often score themselves lower than they really are. I always want students to feel that I am their biggest cheerleader, because they need adults who believe in their potential. It is my job to take what they learned in middle school and outside of school and expand upon that learning through providing rigorous learning activities.
My first artifact are my success criteria and learning targets. Our district has put a huge emphasis on learning targets in the past year and how to effectively communicate those to students as well as parents. However, more recently we are shifting towards success criteria which in my eyes sets clear guidelines and helps students conceptualize what they should be learning in class. It helps student achievement because it doesn't leave students wondering if they met the target or not it helps them self assess more accurately. Each day students have highlighted what success criteria we have worked on and if they reached that yet or not. It has helped with attendance as well because it is easier to pinpoint what concept they did not fully understand.
My second artifact involves data analysis from PLC. We are able to look at what units students struggled in and assess why that may have happened. One unit we had several students who got a C or below because the units final exam was an essay paper. So we instead moving forward decided to take more real time assessments by walking around the class and asking questions and assessing their knowledge based off of that.
As I mentioned earlier communication with parents is also vital for holding students to a high standard of achievement. This is because we want parents to support children in their academics outside of school. Our districts policy of constant communication is highly encouraged parents are contacted through emails as well as phone calls. Often times parents are very helpful in making sure students are coming in to get help or clarification on work.
Overall it is my goal to make sure students are held to a high standard and these pieces of evidence demonstrate that by having success criteria to support their learning, adapting assessments to promote success and also involving the family.
Demonstrates ability to enhance academic performance and support for implementation of the school district's student achievement goals.
One of the biggest struggles I think teachers face would be getting students to truly believe they are capable of greatness. Often times when doing self assessment students often score themselves lower than they really are. I always want students to feel that I am their biggest cheerleader, because they need adults who believe in their potential. It is my job to take what they learned in middle school and outside of school and expand upon that learning through providing rigorous learning activities.
My first artifact are my success criteria and learning targets. Our district has put a huge emphasis on learning targets in the past year and how to effectively communicate those to students as well as parents. However, more recently we are shifting towards success criteria which in my eyes sets clear guidelines and helps students conceptualize what they should be learning in class. It helps student achievement because it doesn't leave students wondering if they met the target or not it helps them self assess more accurately. Each day students have highlighted what success criteria we have worked on and if they reached that yet or not. It has helped with attendance as well because it is easier to pinpoint what concept they did not fully understand.
My second artifact involves data analysis from PLC. We are able to look at what units students struggled in and assess why that may have happened. One unit we had several students who got a C or below because the units final exam was an essay paper. So we instead moving forward decided to take more real time assessments by walking around the class and asking questions and assessing their knowledge based off of that.
As I mentioned earlier communication with parents is also vital for holding students to a high standard of achievement. This is because we want parents to support children in their academics outside of school. Our districts policy of constant communication is highly encouraged parents are contacted through emails as well as phone calls. Often times parents are very helpful in making sure students are coming in to get help or clarification on work.
Overall it is my goal to make sure students are held to a high standard and these pieces of evidence demonstrate that by having success criteria to support their learning, adapting assessments to promote success and also involving the family.
Standard 2
Demonstrates competence in content knowledge appropriate to the teaching position.
Science can be a hard subject for students. Some people refer to science as its own language because of how different the words and concepts are. It is my job as their teacher to take very hard or different concepts and make them tangible to them.
The first way I demonstrate my competence in my content area is by creating examples that students can relate to. Before I taught them how to create a lab we went through and they all wrote how to make a peanut butter and jelly and we walked around deciding how specific we needed to be. In unit 6 plate tectonics before discussing the layers of the Earth I did a demonstration with an egg that I removed the yolk from. I asked the students what they thought was inside the egg based off of their knowledge growing up. Many responded with yolk or white stuff. Then I broke the egg by throwing it at a student and they realized there was nothing in it. So then we went into the layers of the Earth and discussed what is inside our Earth and how we can get evidence to support our ideas. Another example is when we discussed kepler's laws of planetary motion. We were doing a simulation online, and students were getting the misconception that our planets move in a perfect circle. So I drew on the board with one focal point which made equal sides, then added a point and we had unequal movement (oval). Then the students recreated this as a class with students as the planets so solidify their knowledge of moving. Hands on, tangible ideas then applied to complex ideas help students conceptualize ideas.
The second way I have demonstrated my competency is when I rewrote the Earth science curriculum. Our district coordinator chose my PLC out of all the other high schools to work on this. It was a great experience to look into the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) and decide how to write them so they are tangible to new teachers as well as teachers who have been working with the curriculum for a while. We also flipped some of the units to make a more logical flow.
Overall I have worked hard to make sure my content is accessible to students. I have also been able to rework the content for not only my school but the entire district
Demonstrates competence in content knowledge appropriate to the teaching position.
Science can be a hard subject for students. Some people refer to science as its own language because of how different the words and concepts are. It is my job as their teacher to take very hard or different concepts and make them tangible to them.
The first way I demonstrate my competence in my content area is by creating examples that students can relate to. Before I taught them how to create a lab we went through and they all wrote how to make a peanut butter and jelly and we walked around deciding how specific we needed to be. In unit 6 plate tectonics before discussing the layers of the Earth I did a demonstration with an egg that I removed the yolk from. I asked the students what they thought was inside the egg based off of their knowledge growing up. Many responded with yolk or white stuff. Then I broke the egg by throwing it at a student and they realized there was nothing in it. So then we went into the layers of the Earth and discussed what is inside our Earth and how we can get evidence to support our ideas. Another example is when we discussed kepler's laws of planetary motion. We were doing a simulation online, and students were getting the misconception that our planets move in a perfect circle. So I drew on the board with one focal point which made equal sides, then added a point and we had unequal movement (oval). Then the students recreated this as a class with students as the planets so solidify their knowledge of moving. Hands on, tangible ideas then applied to complex ideas help students conceptualize ideas.
The second way I have demonstrated my competency is when I rewrote the Earth science curriculum. Our district coordinator chose my PLC out of all the other high schools to work on this. It was a great experience to look into the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) and decide how to write them so they are tangible to new teachers as well as teachers who have been working with the curriculum for a while. We also flipped some of the units to make a more logical flow.
Overall I have worked hard to make sure my content is accessible to students. I have also been able to rework the content for not only my school but the entire district
Standard 3
Demonstrates competence in planning and preparing for instruction.
I have worked hard to make sure that I am planned for my classes. One way that I have accomplished this is by creating unit/ semester books. These books have activities, learning targets, goals, calendar for students to write in.
In college one of my professors told us that your students should be the one to guide when your tests or assessments are. He said this because you want your students to understand the content not rush to take a test. While I plan our units out a few months there are always times when I will stop from my original plan and add in something else depending on where students are. Often times this might be a circle where students sit in a circle and share their ideas a quick way for me to see if there are any misconceptions before we move forward.
I also write in our learning goals and assessments/activities into my own notebook which then students do as well to make sure we are all on task. This helps especially when students are absent or miss content it is easier to get caught up.
Demonstrates competence in planning and preparing for instruction.
I have worked hard to make sure that I am planned for my classes. One way that I have accomplished this is by creating unit/ semester books. These books have activities, learning targets, goals, calendar for students to write in.
In college one of my professors told us that your students should be the one to guide when your tests or assessments are. He said this because you want your students to understand the content not rush to take a test. While I plan our units out a few months there are always times when I will stop from my original plan and add in something else depending on where students are. Often times this might be a circle where students sit in a circle and share their ideas a quick way for me to see if there are any misconceptions before we move forward.
I also write in our learning goals and assessments/activities into my own notebook which then students do as well to make sure we are all on task. This helps especially when students are absent or miss content it is easier to get caught up.
Standard 4
Uses strategies to deliver instruction that meets the multiple learning needs of students.
I think this standard is really impactful for me because my first year teaching the day before school started I was told I would be teaching an ELL class. That truly scared me because I thought "I don't know how to teach ELL", but my mentor told me that teaching ELL is just using more hands on, word associating and using effective teaching strategies that I was already equipped with. That will not only help you ELL students but truly good teaching for all students.
I think teaching ELL has pushed me to become a stronger teacher and being able to assess what each students needs to be successful. This includes most of my artifacts which show hands on learning with language supports such as sentence starters. It involves activities that relate to students through the use of technology. Technology is something that dominates the world we live in so I have tried to work in more technology including phet simulations, games, QR codes for videos, QR codes for readings, text that is translated for spanish, kahoots, presentations, writing assignments, Canvas. I think technology is something that is comforting for students so anytime I can use it in my classroom my student engagement increases dramatically.
I have also tried to incorporate more labs that students can create and interact with. This includes my artifact with the balloons, students were demonstrating how our universe is expanding by the use of a balloon and measuring the distance between "galaxies". Hands on activities really help students grasp the understanding and it is an activity we can reach back to in order to discuss. I also mention having stations and gallery walks to show kids content that strays away from the older model of "sit and get" lectures. Stations provide modality changes that help keep students attention while also showing similar information in a multitude of ways.
Pictures and videos are also something that help students visualize concepts that may be harder to grasp since we can not travel back in time or all the way up to space which is many of our standards such as the big bang theory, or the interior of our Earth since scientists can only drill about 12 kilometers which in retrospect barely scratches the surface of how deep our Earth is.
Students are very transparent they often will tell me what they need or want more of in our class in order to understand the content. Students like to play games that relate to the content and don't like to do the same thing every day so I really try to create activities that are different and involve the students voice in order to reach different learning styles.
Uses strategies to deliver instruction that meets the multiple learning needs of students.
I think this standard is really impactful for me because my first year teaching the day before school started I was told I would be teaching an ELL class. That truly scared me because I thought "I don't know how to teach ELL", but my mentor told me that teaching ELL is just using more hands on, word associating and using effective teaching strategies that I was already equipped with. That will not only help you ELL students but truly good teaching for all students.
I think teaching ELL has pushed me to become a stronger teacher and being able to assess what each students needs to be successful. This includes most of my artifacts which show hands on learning with language supports such as sentence starters. It involves activities that relate to students through the use of technology. Technology is something that dominates the world we live in so I have tried to work in more technology including phet simulations, games, QR codes for videos, QR codes for readings, text that is translated for spanish, kahoots, presentations, writing assignments, Canvas. I think technology is something that is comforting for students so anytime I can use it in my classroom my student engagement increases dramatically.
I have also tried to incorporate more labs that students can create and interact with. This includes my artifact with the balloons, students were demonstrating how our universe is expanding by the use of a balloon and measuring the distance between "galaxies". Hands on activities really help students grasp the understanding and it is an activity we can reach back to in order to discuss. I also mention having stations and gallery walks to show kids content that strays away from the older model of "sit and get" lectures. Stations provide modality changes that help keep students attention while also showing similar information in a multitude of ways.
Pictures and videos are also something that help students visualize concepts that may be harder to grasp since we can not travel back in time or all the way up to space which is many of our standards such as the big bang theory, or the interior of our Earth since scientists can only drill about 12 kilometers which in retrospect barely scratches the surface of how deep our Earth is.
Students are very transparent they often will tell me what they need or want more of in our class in order to understand the content. Students like to play games that relate to the content and don't like to do the same thing every day so I really try to create activities that are different and involve the students voice in order to reach different learning styles.
Standard 5
Uses a variety of methods to monitor student learning.
Monitoring for learning is an essential task for teachers because it allows for adaptation to plans based off of student readiness. One way that I am constantly monitoring is walking around the classroom checking in for understanding by asking questions about the content and how it addresses the learning target/ideas for that day. I am checking as students are writing making sure they are answering questions fully or writing out their complete thoughts.
More direct ways I do this is by whiteboarding. I will pose a prompt or problem on the board and they will begin to write on the whiteboard. More recently their notebooks have clear covers on them so the whiteboard markers work on those as well which has helped cut down the time of gather materials for whiteboarding. This allows me to quickly check the work of students. Another favorite use of whiteboards is group consensus where each member writes their answer then as a table group they write one final answer on their whiteboard for me to check off.
I have also used vote with your feet or true and false sticks for more recall knowledge or debatable topics where students get to stand up and physically show what side they agree on or using hand help true false sticks to raise up their answers.
Something that is also great for assessing student learning are exit tickets that can address several different aspects of the content. The artifact I chose was students addressing how they felt based off of the learning target that we learned from a PD one time that I then implemented in my class. I have also been using circles in my classroom for class building but also as a check for student understanding by asking them questions about the previous class which is a quick real time way to assess where students are at.
A last way that is essential is a more culminating form of assessment where students are actually writing/drawing/conducting some sort of assessment that demonstrates their knowledge. All of these forms of assessment play a vital role in determining my next steps in the teaching process. Maybe I have to go back and reteach or have another way for students to grapple with the knowledge before I introduce another new topic.
Uses a variety of methods to monitor student learning.
Monitoring for learning is an essential task for teachers because it allows for adaptation to plans based off of student readiness. One way that I am constantly monitoring is walking around the classroom checking in for understanding by asking questions about the content and how it addresses the learning target/ideas for that day. I am checking as students are writing making sure they are answering questions fully or writing out their complete thoughts.
More direct ways I do this is by whiteboarding. I will pose a prompt or problem on the board and they will begin to write on the whiteboard. More recently their notebooks have clear covers on them so the whiteboard markers work on those as well which has helped cut down the time of gather materials for whiteboarding. This allows me to quickly check the work of students. Another favorite use of whiteboards is group consensus where each member writes their answer then as a table group they write one final answer on their whiteboard for me to check off.
I have also used vote with your feet or true and false sticks for more recall knowledge or debatable topics where students get to stand up and physically show what side they agree on or using hand help true false sticks to raise up their answers.
Something that is also great for assessing student learning are exit tickets that can address several different aspects of the content. The artifact I chose was students addressing how they felt based off of the learning target that we learned from a PD one time that I then implemented in my class. I have also been using circles in my classroom for class building but also as a check for student understanding by asking them questions about the previous class which is a quick real time way to assess where students are at.
A last way that is essential is a more culminating form of assessment where students are actually writing/drawing/conducting some sort of assessment that demonstrates their knowledge. All of these forms of assessment play a vital role in determining my next steps in the teaching process. Maybe I have to go back and reteach or have another way for students to grapple with the knowledge before I introduce another new topic.
Standard 6
Demonstrates competence in classroom management.
My teaching philosophy highlights my thoughts on classroom management which is that students will work for people they trust, and know care. So my basis for classroom management is to foster those relationships with the students and then address those that are more challenging. I do have a station for students to self-reflect/ get back on track. Our district policy is of course to keep students in the classroom and to work with them through any misunderstandings. That can be difficult at times but this get back on track area has helped several students take a break then re engage in the class.
I have also learned that students need a purpose, so giving students more responsibility and roles in the classroom minimizes the negative behavior because they feel like the room and students are apart of something. Giving students roles as well as tasks in the class holds students accountable in the activity and learning.
Classroom management is something that I will continuously work towards because each class and student are different. However, I know that being kind and talking to the students as humans will help with any problems that arise in the classroom.
Demonstrates competence in classroom management.
My teaching philosophy highlights my thoughts on classroom management which is that students will work for people they trust, and know care. So my basis for classroom management is to foster those relationships with the students and then address those that are more challenging. I do have a station for students to self-reflect/ get back on track. Our district policy is of course to keep students in the classroom and to work with them through any misunderstandings. That can be difficult at times but this get back on track area has helped several students take a break then re engage in the class.
I have also learned that students need a purpose, so giving students more responsibility and roles in the classroom minimizes the negative behavior because they feel like the room and students are apart of something. Giving students roles as well as tasks in the class holds students accountable in the activity and learning.
Classroom management is something that I will continuously work towards because each class and student are different. However, I know that being kind and talking to the students as humans will help with any problems that arise in the classroom.
Standard 7
Engages in professional growth.
One of the greatest parts of our job is that there is always something new to grow from. I engage in several professional growth activities. More straight forward was my initial SRG training where we learned how to create 3D assessments and engage with how to correctly work with SRG practices of multiple opportunities but not endless opportunities. I also had the privilege of going to see Brian Mendler where he talks about classroom management and working with students who challenge us emotionally and professionally. I have also engaged in two learning cycles with the teacher coaches we have in our building which have offered me new ways to engage students. My favorite professional growth has been my new interest in podcasts. My old high school teacher actually started this podcast called "Vrain Waves" which I has sparked a passion for teaching again. I love listening to the new tips and ideas from a wide variety of people in our field.
Engages in professional growth.
One of the greatest parts of our job is that there is always something new to grow from. I engage in several professional growth activities. More straight forward was my initial SRG training where we learned how to create 3D assessments and engage with how to correctly work with SRG practices of multiple opportunities but not endless opportunities. I also had the privilege of going to see Brian Mendler where he talks about classroom management and working with students who challenge us emotionally and professionally. I have also engaged in two learning cycles with the teacher coaches we have in our building which have offered me new ways to engage students. My favorite professional growth has been my new interest in podcasts. My old high school teacher actually started this podcast called "Vrain Waves" which I has sparked a passion for teaching again. I love listening to the new tips and ideas from a wide variety of people in our field.
Standard 8
Fulfills professional responsibilities established by the school district.
My artifacts for standard 8 demonstrate that I have accomplished many responsibilities outside of the classroom. The first one is my work with my contact log, I have fulfilled the districts requirement in conjunction with our conferences in both the spring and fall semester. I have also been on our schools BeEast teach which focuses on student engagement in our school and how to promote positive behavior. I love being on the team because I am able to work to better our school through the children. I am also a teacher leader in Science Bound which offers students of minorities the opportunity to pursue a career in STEM field through Iowa State which has been a real pleasure witnessing how much our students have grown. Lastly I have fulfilled the 4 activites a year requirement of volunteering to help at school events. This has been great because our students love the support from their teachers and their games/meets/performances.
Fulfills professional responsibilities established by the school district.
My artifacts for standard 8 demonstrate that I have accomplished many responsibilities outside of the classroom. The first one is my work with my contact log, I have fulfilled the districts requirement in conjunction with our conferences in both the spring and fall semester. I have also been on our schools BeEast teach which focuses on student engagement in our school and how to promote positive behavior. I love being on the team because I am able to work to better our school through the children. I am also a teacher leader in Science Bound which offers students of minorities the opportunity to pursue a career in STEM field through Iowa State which has been a real pleasure witnessing how much our students have grown. Lastly I have fulfilled the 4 activites a year requirement of volunteering to help at school events. This has been great because our students love the support from their teachers and their games/meets/performances.