9. Professionalism, Leadership, and advocacy

Click: student teaching reflections

Artifacts

This google docs is an artifact that was created during my student teaching experiences. The spreadsheet included the schedule, our goals, and our reflections. This tool helps to keep one prepared for the coming week and reflect on the week. We spend many hours as teachers planning and executing lessons, but when some lessons that we thought would go will not, we may wonder, "What happened and why?" Those are excellent questions, and they represent an essential step in our professional development as educators. Posing questions to ourselves allows us to reflect on what we did and why we made our decisions. Reflection is deliberate and structured decision-making. It is a necessary step toward bettering our practice. Reflection allows us as educators to see our successes and challenges and consider options for change.

Connection to the IPTS standard

This artifact is significant because it contains a weekly reflection of the actual events throughout the student teaching semester. "The competent teacher reflects on professional practice and resulting outcomes; engages in self-assessment; and adjusts practices to improve student performance, school goals, and professional growth," according to Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 9 Performance Indicator 9K. In google docs, I reflect on things that went well and areas where I could improve as an educator. Every week, I set goals for myself and reflect on my progress toward those goals.

Description of what was learned

My weekly entries have taught me to be a reflective and thoughtful practitioner. As a teacher, I will set weekly goals and track my progress toward meeting those goals. In my future classroom, I intend to keep reflecting on my weeks and differentiate and improve my instruction. I am a lifelong learner who is constantly learning and growing in education through self-reflection and evaluation.