High Expectations

Proficiency Indicator (from DESE):

"Clearly communicates high standards for student work, effort, and behavior, and consistently reinforces the expectation that all students can meet these standards through effective effort, rather than innate ability."

High expectations are very important for teachers to have of their students. It is the teacher's job to set the expectations for the class and make sure that all learners are meeting those expectations. When a learner is not meeting those expectations, the teacher should figure out what barriers are in the way of the student instead of lowering the expectations. When teachers lower expectations, then students move to higher grades without being able to perform the skills that they should've learned the previous year leading to compounding problems. 

In my classroom, I make my expectations clear from the beginning. When giving out assignments, I first go through it with them and tell them what is expected at each step. The instructions are also given on each assignment whether it's a paper assignment or on google classroom. Not only do I let students know of the expectations, but I also try to instill in them that they are able to reach those expectations. I take my time to patiently sit with students because I know that they are capable. If I didn't think that a student could meet the expectations, then those expectations may need to be revisited.

The artifact that I chose to demonstrate my proficiency of High Expectations in the classroom is a project that I developed called the Polynomial Analysis Project. This project was made to test students' abilities to identify certain characteristics on a graph. As seen below, this project tells students the goal, process, product, and materials used up front. Before giving the project, I also showed students an example (right) I made so they would have an idea what their final project should look like. For this project, the students met the clearly communicated standards through effective effort.