Teaching

Course Syllabi & Evaluation

Below is a list of all courses I have taught since my reappointment in September 2022 or will teach in Spring 2024 at The State University of New York College at Cortland. I have included a copy of the syllabus and course evaluation for each course as well as selected quotes from students that were provided on course CTEs where applicable. This page also includes course artifacts from some of the courses listed as well as my thinking and reflection about the implementation of these artifacts.

Spring 2024

While I have just started teaching these courses as of the date of this submission, I am excited about the prospect of continuing to learn from and with my students and to continue to refine my pedagogy.

Fall 2023

Spring 2023

Fall 2022

Course Artifacts 

The instructional strategies mentioned in my previous portfolio are still relevant. One of my goals since my reappointment is to leverage the teaching strategies that have proven effective and to refine those to continue to meet students' needs. My continued goal as an educator is to provide students with opportunities to learn with each other and to support all students' learning and success in my classrooms in any way that is needed. Specifically, I continue to use these three approaches with continued modification, adaptation and revision as described below:

One modification I have enacted since my previous portfolio is the inclusion of a one-on-one conversation with a different student each class. I used to allow this time to be my students' time to talk while I waited for their sharing out. Now, I make a concerted effort to talk to a different student each class to have a conversation about these questions and anything else they want to talk about. I do this because want my students to know that I really do care about their health, well-being, and success. In fact, on Wednesday, January 24, 2024, after checking in with my students, one of them asked, "Have you ever considered being a therapist?" I laughed and said no--but I took it as a compliment.

One adaptation I have enacted since my previous portfolio is the use of Kahoot to assess students' reading of the assigned articles and chapters. Previously Kahoot was used (and still is) as a way to have fun and review material. Now, Kahoot it used as an assessment tool wherein students are held accountable for their own learning and their performance on Kahoot counts as part of their course grade (see course syllabi provided above). I have made this adaption because students' learning in class is often dependent on their reading before class. I see my class time as an opportunity to apply the thinking from the course readings. I noticed that students were sometimes struggling with that application, and after speaking to them about it, I learned that this was because they weren't read the course materials very closely. Now, using Kahoot to assess student reading and then clarifying misconceptions or providing direct instruction, we know spend our class time applying knowledge to new content or skill development.

One revision I have enacted since my previous portfolio is this Adolescent Literacy Inventory Data Report. One of the foci questions in my LIT 449/549: Literacy in the Secondary Schools course is, "How do you know a student who did not pass your assessment doesn't know the content or can't access the material?" The inclusion of the Adolescent Literacy Inventory, and its use in the final Disciplinary Literacy Lesson Plan assignment, speaks to this question and provides a potential solution. By adding these two assignments (and scaffolding them appropriately), students in my LIT 449/549: Literacy in the Secondary Schools can not only answer the question provided above but also practice designing lessons which respond to the needs of students now for use in the classroom in the future.

Observation from Dr. Katarina Silvestri

I was honored to have Dr. Katarina Silvestri, my Department Mentor and Department Chair of the Literacy Department, virtually observe my LIT 371: Teaching Elementary Reading & Language Arts - I course from Fall 2023. As further evidence of how the Course Artifacts and Teaching Practices outlined above are seen in my pedagogy, please see this document from Dr. Silvestri.

Click on the arrow in the top right of the document below to see Dr. Katarina Silvestri's observation report.

Reflection of Teaching Practices

The Fall 2023 iteration of LIT 527: Comprehension Instruction & Assessment was a challenge for me for a variety of reasons, and while I think the course evaluations speak to that, I would like to take some time to reflect on this course in particular and address Part IV, Section A of the Literacy Department Bylaws.

I was honored to work with colleagues to revise the Key Assignments for LIT 527: Comprehension Instruction & Assessment. Because this course was redesigned to include field experience that worked with real student data rather than actual students, the Key Assessments needed to be appropriately rigorous and all for students to demonstrate mastery of the conceptual, theoretical, and practical underpinnings of the course.

Key Assignment #1 required students to read, analyze, and synthesize seminal and recent literacy research which attempted to explicate the complex process of reading. Students were required to read and write complex texts, to base their writing in text, and apply content knowledge to curricula or curricular approaches (Literacy Department ByLaws, Part IV, Section A, Items 4a-b).  

Key Assignment #2 provided students with real student data, which I collected for use across all sections of LIT 527, and required an expert application of comprehension assessment practices to analyze student data and make appropriate instructional recommendations. This item was a new unit with this course and is indicative of the current changes in the field of literacy instruction. While literacy specialists are often asked to collect data from students, most K-12 school districts have purchased software which collects that data, and it is now the responsibility of the literacy specialist to analyze that data and make instructional recommendations (Literacy Department Bylaws, Part IV, Section A, Items 5a-b). 

Lastly, I felt as if the course readings (all from practitioner texts) from previous iterations of LIT 527: Comprehension Instruction & Assessment could have (or maybe should have) been more research-based, more historical, and more specific. As such, I added additional readings to the courses on top of the textbooks assigned for the course--as seen in the syllabus provided (Literacy Department Bylaws, Part IV, Section A, Item 7). 

While I am proud to have made these changes to this iteration of the course in consultation with colleagues, it was not without its set-backs. First of all, this was second semester in a row (third semester overall) that I had taken on a teaching overload in order to meet the needs of my colleagues and department. This, coupled with taking an an entirely new class I had never taught before (LIT 371: Teaching Elementary Reading & Language Arts - I) and the course revisions for LIT 527: Teaching Comprehension & Instruction was too much. I was not giving as much attention to the course revisions for LIT 527: Teaching Comprehension & Instruction that they needed and deserved. I had expected Literacy masters candidates to be able to make sense of the articles provided, watch the videos, read the scoring manual, and "know" how to do an item analysis without much support beyond the small groups and/or one-on-one meetings or email exchanged with me. 

That was not the case, and because of the course overload, I was not able to get students' work back to them as quickly as I usually would. In order to allow these students to revise the work submitted, I made adjustments to assignments after students had submitted work in order to meet the all students where they were and allowed for resubmissions. This was not an effective teaching or learning practice, and the CTEs reflect that.

In order to address this concern, I met with the Spring 2024 professors of LIT 527: Comprehension Instruction & Assessment to let them know my experience and to make recommendations for streamlining the course, scaffolding learning more intentionally and deliberately, and providing mentor texts to students for consultation. 

In the end, the entire process of co-designing LIT 527: Comprehension Instruction & Assessment, teaching the course, and learning from the course is indicative of my pedagogy as a whole. I am willing and able to do the work needed to meet the needs of the field and I am also read, willing, and able to adapt and modify my instruction--or assist my colleages in doing the same--in order to be/become the best teacher I can for my students.