While there are many steps involved in being a successful teacher, one clear way for any teacher to self-evaluate her success is to review her data. In this section, I review in detail some examples of my students' dramatic academic growth in math and writing this year, both as a class and with individual student examples.
In this section, I analyze in detail my class' performance on our District Math Benchmarks 1, 2, and 3. I look at our class performance as a whole on each benchmark, and discuss what instructional choices I made to support my students after thoroughly analyzing my data. I also review two example students who made extraordinary growth on these assessments and discuss how they made this growth.
In this section, I take a close look at three students' writing samples throughout the year. Each of these students began the year at or below grade level in writing and through careful phonemic, writing, and comprehension instruction are expected to finish the year at or above grade level. These samples are all looked at in detail and compared using a school-specific writing rubric which I helped create.
My students have made significant growth this year due to my instructional choices. While every student can benefit from direct instruction, many students also require additional supports to reach their academic goals. Throughout the year I carefully reviewed academic data, both quantitative and qualitative, to consider what I could add to my whole group, small group, and individualized instruction to help all students succeed. I believe I have shown that my students have made dramatic academic growth and are on track to be well prepared for first grade.