Adjustments to Practice

To demonstrate exemplary adjustments to practice, a teacher candidate must "organize and analyze results from a comprehensive system of assessments to determine progress toward intended outcomes and frequently use these findings to adjust practice and identify and/or implement appropriate differentiated interventions and enhancements for individuals and groups of students and appropriate modifications of lessons and units."

Adjustment to practice is a key component of teacher progress and improvement. After each lesson, a teacher should reflect on the lesson's outcomes and, if necessary, make adjustments to their lesson. These adjustments can be as simple as altering the type of supplementary material given to the students or the delivery of the lesson. After analysis of assessments, adjustments might need to be made to the lesson delivery and the assessment itself. The wording of a question or structure of a problem on an assessment can have a huge impact on the student response. If it is evident that students do not perform well on a certain type of question or problem on an assessment, the teacher should either include that type of problem more during class, or choose to eliminate that type of problem from future assessments. This adjustment to practice is all very dependent on the teacher's reflective practice.

As identified in the CAP rubric, it is also very important that teachers frequently identify and implement adjustments for individuals and groups of students with modifications. As discussed in the meeting diverse needs section, these students should be assessed on the same objectives and standards as the rest of the students, but with modifications that create equitable learning opportunities. The students in the classroom who may recieve modified materials should be closely monitored to see if they're getting the proper help they need.

Adjustments to practice based on reflection on lessons and assessments is key to longterm teaching practice improvements, but teachers also have to be able to adjust and adapt to students during their lesson. Although teachers spend hours upon hours planning lessons each week, a lesson will never go exactly as it is planned. Some classes may understand the material the first time you explain it whereas other students may need it explained in multiple different ways. It is important to constantly adjust lessons depending on student understanding because there is no point in continuing a lesson if 75% of the class is not understanding what the teacher is explaining.

Specifically in my classroom, I have had to adjust my teaching in response to students and class needs. After evaluating student learning with formative assessments, I have had to reteach material. For example, we had a tool identification activity where I presented approximately 50 tools with their uses and for the follow-up activity students had to identify which tool would be appropriate for the given task. During the follow-up activity, there were a few tools that students expressed some confusion with, so I adjusted the follow-up activity by reiterating the uses of the tools they were confused about and answered those specific questions as a class, rather than individually. Another example is towards the beginning of my practicum, I noticed one of my students was struggling to read instructions on the board as well as handouts. This student already had preferential seating and other accomodations from their 504 plan because of impaired vision. I noticed this student was still struggling, so I conferred with them and we decided that making the appropriate adjustments to worksheets and my presentations would be beneficial. After making adjustments, I checked in with this student often to make sure their needs were met.

CAP Student Feedback Survey

Towards the middle of my practicum, students were given the CAP Student Feedback Survey: 6-12 Short Form. Based on the results of the survey, I made the following action plan for adjusting my teaching practices:

provide more chances for students to give each other feedback
at the end of lessons, ask students to rate their understanding of learning objectives
ask students to summarize their learning at the end of lessons and units
incorporate more student-driven learning activities like jigsaws