Standards:
#6 - Assessment: The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s and learner’s decision making.
#7 - Planning for Instruction: The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community context.
#8 - Instructional Strategies: The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways.
#11 - Technology: Effective teachers model and apply the International Society for Technology Education Standards for Students (ISTE Standards) as they design, implement, and assess learning experiences to engage students and improve learning; enrich professional practice; and provide positive models for students, colleagues, and the community.
Evidence:
#6: Plate Tectonics Assessment, Plate Tectonics Review - Upper & Lower Mantle, NA Tectonic Plate CER Worksheet, Rubric for Writing a Persuasive Paragraph
#7 & 8: NOTESHEET Wabanaki Involvement in the Revolutionary War, Persuasive Writing #2 Worksheet, Persuasive Paragraph Highlighting Example, ST Inquiry Project, Hyphen or Not? - Compound Word Sheet
#11: Plate Tectonics Review Slides, NA Boundary Plate Slideshow, Persuasive Writing Unit - Addressing an Envelope, Writing a Complete Persuasive Paragraph, What is Persuasive Writing?, Persuasive Writing Paragraphs to Letters, Persuasive Writing Unit Lesson #2
Reflective Statements:
Assessment: Assessment was really shown during my second placement, during the Plate Tectonics Unit. My mentor teacher tasked me with taking all of the information I observed from the unit, pulling the most important information out, and making it into an appropriate test for grades 5-7. The Assessment had many forms of showing understanding, with 8 multiple choice questions, 2 short answer, a connect the terms to the definition visual board, and a bonus question that showed further understanding of the layers of the Earth. The questions in the quiz lead up to knowing the answer of the bonus question, so it allowed many students to gain extra points, even if they got some of it wrong. Before this, though, I had made review sheets that were guided through slideshow lessons I prepared, which gave the students an engaging perspective on the topic. The outcome of this assessment was not as successful as I’d hoped, but it allowed my mentor teacher and me to zero in on what parts of the unit we needed to spend more time on. The parts the students struggled with were the short answer, which also reflected the level of reading they’re individually performing at. My students are all a little behind in this grade level, due to the impacts of COVID and the rural, poor community.
During my persuasive writing unit, I made a rubric for each student to follow to ensure that they had all of the necessary components to meet expectations. They followed the rubric as they went, and it led to them being able to self-critique their own writing, to make it the best and clearest they could. It was really cool seeing my students recognize and define the different parts of a letter, what reasoning v. evidence is, and apply them to their other assignments in other classes and subjects.
Planning for Instruction & Instructional Strategies: For my Inquiry Project/Service to School, I made an interdisciplinary lesson plan for Wabanaki Involvement in the Revolutionary War. A dilemma that IIS faces is that teaching American History can often be a sensitive and inaccurate subject to teach for our students. In 5th & 6th grade, it is common for students in the United States to learn about the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War. Using traditional history books, the stories of the Wabanaki people are often omitted. This impacts teaching and learning because it doesn’t provide a comprehensive perspective of the American Revolution. A lot of my students weren’t aware of how vital their tribe/culture’s role was in capturing artillery, ships, and even people. So in this lesson planning, I made a timeline for the students to follow along with throughout the unit, making this a resource they could use far beyond my time in the classroom, as I went to my second placement while they were still in this unit.
When planning to instruct this, I had to cherry-pick which events were appropriate for them to hear at their age level. There was a large historical emphasis on scalp bounties and derogatory terms being the norm during my research, so I needed a lot of modifications with guidance from community members. I presented the timeline I had made to the Wabanaki language instructor to ensure the information was accurate and age-appropriate. This collaboration and development gave me a new perspective on how we deliver history to our students. It is important to know the community you’re teaching in, because it can make or break how the students see themselves impacting the future.
Technology: Technology is an integral part of today’s teaching and learning. IIS has BenQ’s, which are like a large touch screen that can serve as a browser, whiteboard, or presentation board. All of my lessons integrate technology, whether it was my persuasive writing unit or my Earth science lessons. I am very fond of the modality of using a slideshow to smoothly guide myself and students through the lessons. It makes it easy to embed videos that can often explain hard concepts/vocabulary much better than I can for my age range.
My mentor teachers have helped me get familiar with some of the online learning tools as well. Prodigy.com for English and math helped my students connect concepts in class to what seemed like free time with their educational games. Mr. LaFlamme used USGS websites with interactive maps around the world showing where earthquakes were common as a way to introduce our students to tectonic plates and the Earth’s layers. I helped out with this unit by finding videos that showed the concepts we were talking about either in real life or as a USGS simulation. This teamwork helped me not only develop professional collaborative skills but also opened my eyes to the different modalities available to keep students engaged.
The fact that I grew up alongside the development of the technology we use today has given me a large advantage over many older educators today. I obviously still have a lot to learn, but I’m able to troubleshoot the BenQ, websites like Google Classroom, and Chromebook problems with ease, before having students inundate the one tech support guy in the building. My experience with technology here has laid a good foundation for what types of technology I’ll be using regularly in future jobs, and I have actual resources to list off in an interview if it were to come up.