1.B.2: Adjustments to Practice

About the Element

The teacher candidate needs to analyze and interpret results from formative and summative assessments to determine student progress towards the objectives of the class. These results should be used to adjust practice and identify and/or incorporate differentiated instruction and interventions for students.

Adjustments to Practice and Reflective Practice go hand-in-hand. After teachers reflect on their lessons, on what worked well and what could be changed, they need to implement those changes. Teachers can alter their delivery of a lesson, add a extra note of clarification for a concept, include extra resources to supplement their teaching, etc., in order to adjust their practices and improve their teachings for their students. Adjustments to practice are crucial in determining how to implement materials and enhancements to best suit the learning of their students.

My Adjustments to Practice -- Reflection

Throughout my student teaching, I would debrief with my Supervising Practitioner about parts of the lesson that could be adapted for the next class. Sometimes this meant re-wording my delivery for the following back-to-back class, and other times, this could be in the form of adding an extra slide or frame for the classes on the second day of the week. Often, the changes from class-to-class would make the lesson more effective and efficient for the next class. This was especially evident when I picked up my second class, as described in the "My Classes" section, I was able to implement suggestions on changes from my first delivery of the lesson for the second class I taught. This would allow them to progress through the examples more smoothly and helped to clear up some points of confusion that might have been prevalent in the previous class. Adjustments to practice allowed me to see the importance and strengths of repeating a lesson's delivery and the differences it can make from class-to-class.

Additionally, I adjusted my next lessons based off of the previous week's homework and assessment checks. See how these were used as different types of assessments in the "Assessments" section of "My Classes." On weeks, where it was clear that students were making many errors in the homework or scoring lower than usual on the assessment check, the following week I adjusted my lesson to review the previously-taught concepts, which allowed me to reinforce the ideas and explain them in new ways that might have been clearer to the students.

Also, I adjusted my conductance of my classes based off of the feedback from my students the CAP survey I administered about halfway through my practicum. Read more about this in the "Feedback from Students" section of "My Classes" and "Reflective Practice."

Anna Eng

WPI Teacher Preparation Program

aeeng@wpi.edu