Evidence and Commentary of Classroom Practices.

E. Provide four unique evidential artifacts created during your demonstration teaching, each of which should exemplify a different classroom competency, by doing the following:

1. Provide one evidential artifact created during your demonstration teaching that showcases your competency in the instruction of academic language in the classroom.

a. Explain how the artifact you provided in part E1 demonstrates your competency in this area, including the effect the artifact had or would have on student learning.

Academic language is often thought of as a signifier of aspiration for students, a disciplinary-specific marker of their advanced development. This lauding of vocabulary risks elevating the value of jargon to a level it doesn’t merit, and doesn’t reflect the institution of education, where academic language is a feature of almost all formal communication. This discrepancy between domain-specific application and general use became obvious to me when I asked my students what they thought of way their content standards were written. Not one student in a group of over a dozen 10th graders had ever seen a Common Core State Standard (Common Core), let alone dismantled one to understand exactly what they are aiming to achieve. I was taught that in order to understand a standard, I should pull out the verbs and nouns. The above artifact is a vocabulary list my 10th graders received near the beginning of a learning cycle. I wanted them to understand the relationship between our learning objectives and the curriculum, and, more crucially, to understand the context in which the words they were learning were being used. The second image shows a pre-completed list for students with significant language deficits. The goal of using the vocabulary is already a big enough challenge for those students without having to also define and write that definition down while we discuss them. For the rest of the group, adding the definitions was done via a conversation about each term; I elicited definitions from the students, adapted them where necessary, then I had them complete the entry in their own words, (with the intention of increasing assimilation due to familiarity). I chose this strategy because of the dual reward; not only would students learn new or unfamiliar terms in their proper context, but they would also become more familiar with the goals of the entire project.

b. Explain, based on the artifact’s effect on student learning, how you would modify the artifact for future use.

I would not change the artifact itself, but how it was presented and used should be amended for future use. It may be more effective to only introduce the learning objectives after we have established the definitions of each term in the vocabulary list. Doing so would give the meaning of each word even more context, as we could discuss their specific meaning in relation to the goal. This may be only a minor shift from the original plan, but it would not only increase the odds of students using those terms naturally themselves, but would also further reduce the chances of them failing to understand the goal. I should also reinforce the meaning of those terms by using them whenever possible in our written materials such as writing prompts and summative assessments. I did do this with some of the most crucial words, but not as explicitly and methodically as I could have for the entire list.

2. Provide one evidential artifact created during your demonstration teaching that showcases your competency in using differentiated instruction in the classroom as part of a system of student support.

a. Explain how the artifact you provided in part E2 demonstrates your competency in this area, including the effect the artifact had on student learning.

The above artifact is a list of sentence starters provided to IEP students for support during a summative assessment. I had identified that, due to the pandemic, logical reasoning had not developed within the students at the rate you would normally expect. This deficit is most readily apparent in their responses to prompts, which often lack at least one of the basic requirements (either no evidence presented or no attempt to explain why it justifies their claim). I planned a discussion ahead of the assessment to discuss compelling answers, but I also understood that for students with disabilities, this requirement placed an additional cognitive demand on them which I had a duty to provide support for. These suggestions try to provide help but no answers, while the three-stage split intended to help them navigate the path to logical reasoning success. The results were inconsistent; some students used them throughout and were able to discuss their ideas appropriately, while others struggled to incorporate the suggestions at all. As explained below, the sheer number of words on that page may have been too much for some of the students, causing them to discard the support entirely.

b. Explain, based on the artifact’s effect on student learning, how you would modify the artifact for future use.

I would change the use of this artifact by introducing the theories sooner. Instead of discussing the components of a logically reasoned response near the end of this unit, I should be incorporating them from the beginning. From the initial quick writes, through the formative assessments and all the way through the text analysis, we should be practicing making claims, with evidence and an explanation to support them. This would give all students a chance to develop their skills, and it would give the IEP students more opportunities to become familiar with the process. This in turn would mean I could reduce the volume of words required in the sentence starters, giving them simple pointers rather than the miniature scripts masquerading as supports that they received. For students with disabilities, reducing the barriers to success should be a constant aim for the teacher, and in this case, although I correctly identified a metaphorical wall that they couldn't clamber over, all I did was replace it with a tall fence... adorned with spikes.

3. Provide one evidential artifact created during your demonstration teaching that showcases your competency in using educational technology in the classroom as a way to engage students in their learning.

a. Explain how the artifact you provided in part E3 demonstrates your competency in this area, including the effect the artifact had or would have on student learning.

The above artifact is an excerpt from a quiz I created on Kahoot.com. I am a certified Kahoot user and use their platform regularly. In this instance, I wanted to prepare our 8th graders for their upcoming ELA assessments. The first two slides were designed to get them thinking logically, then the next two relate to questions from an official practice test, with further practice questions making up the rest of the quiz. I chose Kahoot for this lesson because I wanted to introduce the practice questions in a familiar format, and we have used this platform regularly all year. It also gives me the opportunity to discuss the responses, especially the incorrect ones, so that as we progress through the quiz students learn the skills just by being competitive with each other. At time of writing the success of this strategy is yet to be fully determined as the assessments results will not be shared with us for several weeks.

b. Explain, based on the artifact’s effect on student learning, how you would modify the artifact for future use.

The quiz focused on logical reasoning and responding to specific questions, but ELA assessments are varied and demand a broad understanding of many forms of writing. Future quizzes should incorporate questions designed to reacquaint students with all the formats they may encounter, both literary and informational. This quiz should be the first in a series, as one quiz incorporating all the relevant topics would take several hours to complete and eradicate the core quality of the format: fun. Questions which remind students of their RACES mnemonic, or the five components of a narrative, or again, the need to provide evidence to support a claim, are all crucial to achieving a successful outcome, and weaving these in and around actual questions from the practice test material would provide both variation and assessment-specific guidance.

4. Provide one evidential artifact created during your demonstration teaching that showcases your competency in using professional communication with students’ families.

a. Explain how the artifact you provided in part E4 demonstrates your competency in this area, including the effect the artifact had or would have on student learning.

The above artifact is a copy of my notes from an IEP meeting. As the case manager, it is not only my job to arrange the meet and gather all the data, but to lead it too. The format is my own design, based on many years of running meetings in a business setting. If I was not able to communicate professionally, I would not be able to facilitate such an important discussion. I have redacted names but left their roles visible, in order to confirm that a) a parent was present, and b) a variety of professionals were also present, from other teachers and our Administrator, as well as school counselors and behavioral psychologists. IEP meetings have a direct, causal effect on student learning, and good, professional communication is essential to their success. At the same time that I am running the meeting, I must also take notes, which requires listening intently to my colleagues to ensure that I record everything relevant, as well as ensuring that all the factors relevant to our decision making are established and addressed in full. The long-term effect on student learning is immense; if I do not take comprehensive notes, there is a chance a necessary support is excluded from the new IEP, which will create difficulties for the student throughout their education. If needed, please see section D3 for further explanation of why an excluded support can create ongoing issues for students (beyond just the missing support itself!).

b. Explain, based on the artifact’s effect on student learning, how you would modify the artifact for future use.

As mentioned, the impact of an IEP meeting on a student's learning is both immediate and significant, with the potential for massive benefits when done well, and debilitating deficits if not. I must ensure that every aspect of the meeting is covered. In this regard, the note-taking section is essential and hugely valuable and should not change at all, but more could be done with the template to facilitate my navigation of the meeting format. All IEP meetings have specific requirements, whether they are an annual review, a three-year reevaluation or something else again. As a new educator, I am still coming to terms with the specifics of each meeting type, and over the next year I plan to develop a template for each meeting format, so I can arrange all my data in the correct order and use the template to guide the meeting to a successful (and complete) conclusion.

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