Fowler 22

TWS 8 Reflections, Self-Evaluation, and Professional Development (Lesson 1)

TWS 8 Standard: The teacher analyzes the relationship between his or her instruction and student learning in order to improve teaching practice. The teacher uses on-going analysis of student learning to make instructional decisions. The teacher identifies area of need for personal professional growth.

Whole Class

A. Based on the data from the chart on TWS 4 and 6 the impact of the interventions was successful, because every student went up in their scoring from the during-assessment to their post-assessment. For the during assessment students were able to work together to match rhyming word cards, and for the pairing of these groups I made sure that a higher preforming student was paired with a lower preforming student. This pairing allowed for the higher preforming student to help the lower preforming student who might have been struggling with rhyming words during the pre-assessment. By having these students work together scores went up from the during-assessment to the post-assessment, which means that this pairing helped, along with some reviewing of key components of a rhyming word before their final assessment was handed out.

B. I took note of students’ progress, and participation during their matching rhyming card game. This allowed me to see which students were still struggling with the lesson, and which student understood what was being taught. As I was taking mental notes of students’ progress I was going around to each group helping them as needed, and by stopping at each group I was able to see where many of the students were struggling, and this helped me see what needed to be reviewed before the final assessment. This instructional decision had a positive impact in the class, and their final assessment scores went up from the during-assessment scores because of working with each individual group. For this lesson no medications were implemented, because the students were catching on so well during the matching cards during-assessment game.

C. When teaching this lesson again, I would first make sure that I had each rhyming match in every stack of cards, because during the game a group got very confused because they had two cards left that were not matches. Along with triple checking each stack of matching cards, I should have put a greater emphasis on rhyming words that are not spelled the same. While the students were working on finding rhyming words in a poem that was on the smart board, it took three different people to come up and try and match the words that rhyme but are not spelled the same. This showed me that they did not understand the concept of listening to the word to see if they rhyme, instead of just looking at the word. If I had to reteach this lesson again I would work more on words that are not spelled the same, but still rhyme.

Three individual students

A. My high achieving student is always attentive in class, and is always raising her hand to ask/ answer questions. She never misses a day of school, and throughout the school day she is always reading every second she gets. I believe she was the most successful in the class with this lesson, because she is such a strong reader. She was the only student who could figure out the two words that rhymed that were not spelled the same, and this was because her reading level is so high that she could recognize that the words sounded the same. Another reason this student did so well is because she is very involved in the class, and is a teacher pleasure. Since she is always trying to please the teacher she rarely has any behavioral problems, and she is always listening to instructions very closely. She is this way because of her good educational background that started at home even before she came into kindergarten, and her desire to read and learn all that she can possibly learn.

a. This student was challenged during this lesson due to the challenge work that was given out when the early finishers were finishing their post-assessment. However, I would like to of tried to challenge her more during the lesson. I could have done that by having her pick out more words that rhymed form poems, and stories that way she had to read thoroughly to find all the words. One other thing that I would like to change in the future to make this lesson not only more challenging for this students, but for everyone else. Would be to teach them more about rhyming words that are not spelled the same, that way they are having to work on their reading skills, and not just looking at the ending of the words to see if they match.

B. My low achieving student has no motivation to do his work, and that is what keeps putting him behind in the classroom. No matter how hard the teacher tries the student is not motivated, and that leads to him either falling asleep or staring off into blank space. One reason for this lack of motivation is because the mom does not care about how well he does in school, and that has been stated multiple times. With her having a do not care attitude, he has the same one and that is hindering him in his learning. Another reason this student is struggling in school is because he is pulled out quite a bit for speech. This is necessary because it is hard to understand him, due to the slang that is used at home. However, it is hindering him in class because he falls behind each time he is pulled out of a lesson. Lastly, he is hindered in the class because he is put to the side of the classroom so that he will not distract the teacher and the rest of the students. Once he is off to the side he tunes everything out and is in his own world and that is when he starts to give up on everything.

a. The first thing I would do differently is move the student to where he can be directly seen by the teacher, so that she can constantly walk beside him to make sure he is paying attention. Another thing that I would do differently would be to provide him with some one on one time. During the pre- and post- assessment, I walked beside his table for a few minutes and give him some attention and he did a little bit of his work, but as soon as I walked away he went straight back to day dreaming. Also I would make sure that this student had plenty of time to move around during the lesson and talk, because when the student was working on the during-assessment with a group he paid a lot more attention than when he would have to sit still and work on his own.

C. My average achieving student is very shy, and does not like to do group work. He is very intelligent but when it comes to doing something with a group or in front of the teacher he gets very shy and nervous. Once he gets shy/ nervous he shuts down some and pays less attention to what is going on and more attention to his doodles that he does on his papers. Even though the during-assessment part of this lesson was group work, in which he did not have much to do with, he did score very well on all his assessments. That is because he is a wonderful reader, but is too nervous to share those reading skills with the teacher. Since the post assessment was individual work with reading he scored perfectly on it, which showed how much he understood about rhyming words.

a. This student’s performance during the lesson was very good, and he had perfect scores across all the assessments. So what I would work on with him would be his shy and nervousness. I would keep allowing him to work in groups, and keep asking him questions in front of the whole class that I know he can answer. That way he is building up his confidence. I also would want to provide more challenging work that he could do on his own. With this challenging work I would add words that rhyme but are not spelled alike to allow him to work on his reading skills. I would make sure that this assessment was done individually for him, so that he would not get nervous and not be able to complete the task.

Reflection

1. This lesson built upon students’ prior knowledge of rhyming words. They have studied rhyming words when they were working on poems, but the study was short and many of the students did not understand the full concept of rhyming words. So this lesson was built upon what they already knew, and what they need to know to move on to second grade.

2. My selection of using matching cards to work on rhyming words helped the students understand the lesson better. This was a fun way for them to learn about rhyming words without them really knowing, and that allowed them to stay focused and play with the cards because they thought it was just a game.

3. Without knowledge of rhyming words, I would have not been able to teach this lesson, because many students had complex questions when they started playing their matching game, that made me even have to think. Also with knowing a good bit about rhyming words I was able to alter my lesson and different times, to better fit the needs of the students.

4. Before the lesson started I had already picked out groups for the during-assessment, and when the during-assessment came I changed up the groups because some students excelled more than I thought they would and some did not excel like I thought they would. I wanted to sure each group was a higher achieving student with a lower achieving student, and during the lesson students surprised me on how much they knew about rhyming words, and how much some of them did not know about rhyming words.

5. Yes, the lesson objectives were met, and this was shown by the final assessment scores, and the increase in knowledge form the pre- to the post-assessments.

6. For this lesson I allowed the student to play with the matching cards to long and it made my lesson longer than it should have been. So next time I teach this lesson I will put a set time on the matching game so that the lesson will be taught in an appropriate amount of time.

7. During this lesson I learned that the majority of my students loved working in groups, and I learned that many of them excel when they work in groups. However, not the whole class likes to work in groups so I need to make sure I balance both individual work and group work, so that I can meet the needs of each student.

Reflection for Professional Development

1. My first goal to improve my professional development is to do better research on rhyming words, and find more materials that can be used to teach them not only about words that have the same ending sounds, but also words that are spelled differently and still rhyme. During the post assessment I noticed that the student did not like having to cross out the rhyming word that did not belong in the big list of words, even though they did well on the assessment. So for next time I teach this lesson I will want to do more research and find a better way to assess their knowledge about rhyming words.

2. My second goal to improve my professional development is to know when to cut an activity off so that I can complete my lesson in a timely manner. There are only so many hours in a school day, and I need to work on making my lesson complete but shorter so that I can fit in all the lessons that need to be taught in one day.

TWS 8 Reflections, Self-Evaluation, and Professional Development (Lesson 2)

TWS 8 Standard: The teacher analyzes the relationship between his or her instruction and student learning in order to improve teaching practice. The teacher uses on-going analysis of student learning to make instructional decisions. The teacher identifies area of need for personal professional growth.

Whole Class

A. Based on the data of the chart from TWS 4 and 6 the impact of the interventions was successful, because every student went up in their scoring from the during-assessment to their post-assessment. One intervention that was made straight after the pre-assessment was focusing on the student working with number lines to subtract different equations. During the pre-assessment students were allowed to pick which every way they wanted to answer five subtraction problems. As I was walking around I noticed that not a single student was using their number line on their desk. This informed me that they either did not know how to use it, or could not use it very well. I knew that the final assessment had five questions that used the number line, so I made sure to teach how to use the number line correctly. Along with teaching how to use it, I gave several examples on the smart board so that students could practice using the number line before the final assessment. This was very beneficial to the class, because if I would not of went over how to use the number line a good percentage of the class would have not done well on their post-assessment.

B. From observing both the pre-assessment and the during-assessment I noticed that the students were not quite comfortable with using materials to help them subtract. Since the final assessment was made, to where materials had to be used to answer each question correctly, I spent some time letting the students first play with the materials and then letting them do practice problems with each material that was being used. This allowed them to gain confidence in themselves with the materials, and it allowed them to do better on their final assessment.

C. When teaching this lesson again I would allow the students to do group work for the during-assessment, and allow them to move around more so that they would not be seated during the whole lesson. This way if students did not understand how to use different materials their partner could have explained how to use them in a different way then I explained and that could have helped them learn to use the materials better. Also another activity that I would have liked to add to this lesson is more practice problems, even though the student did very well on their final assessment I did not feel like they fully understood how to subtract, and that could have been because to many different ways were taught all in one lesson. Along with giving more practice problems I would also teach only two of the ways to subtract instead of teaching four different ways. I think this would have been less confusing for the students, and more students would of make a higher grade on their final assessment.

Three Individual Students

A. My high achieving student is always attentive in class, and always raising her hand to ask/answer questions. She never misses a day of school, and throughout the school day she is always reading. She is always up for any challenge, and with math she always makes it like it is a game, and she is trying to win the game by answering each question correctly. Throughout the school day this student is also very involved, and always wants to do her best to make the teacher happy, and that is why her works is so done so nicely. She also comes from a family that makes her always do her homework, and that allows her to have plenty of practice with math and reading, and that is why I believe she did well in this lesson.

a. During this lesson she was appropriately challenged, because she also did not know how to use the number line to answer subtractions equations. This was shown during the pre-assessment, and during the extra practice that was put up on the board before the final assessment. Even she was confused at first with how to use the number line, and she struggled, but every time she struggled she would work harder at the problem and ask more questions. This hard consistent worked helped her better understand the appropriate way of using the number line. Even though she understands better how to use the number line it still stomped her on one problem on the final assessment, but her work on the paper showed me that she was think very hard about how to figure it out.

B. During this lesson my low preforming student was pulled out of the classroom for speech, and did not come back until the very end of the lesson.

C. My average achieving student is very shy, and does not like to do group work and that helped him out a lot during this math lesson. During the pre-assessment he was freaking out because he was told he could use whatever he wanted to answer the subtraction problems. This scarred him, because he is so use to being told exactly what to do, and his sacredness was reflected in his score for the pre-assessment. Once I noticed how scared he was, and noticed how low that made his pre-assessment scores, I made sure to walk over to him and ask him which method does he like to use, and then I told him to use that method when the teacher gives out a chose on how to subtract. This shyness and sacredness hinders his work in the classroom, even though he knows how to exactly do these subtraction problems he gets scared.

a. Even with his staring out scared during the pre-assessment he was able to recover when he was told exactly how to subtract for the last two assessments. This gave him his since of security that he needed to be able to perform to the best of his abilities. If I had to do this lesson again with him, I would go by his desk at the beginning of the pre-assessment and ask him how he likes to subtract, and then tell him to subtract that way, and that would have given him a since of security, and he would have probably performed better throughout the lesson.

Reflection

1. When I taught this lesson many students already knew how to subtract, but they did not know how to properly use the number line to subtract. So during this lesson I was able to build upon their knowledge of subtraction, so that they know many different ways to subtract. By building upon their knowledge of ways to subtract they will be able to figure out which way works best for them, and that will allow them to perfect their math skills in subtraction.

2. My selection of allowing them to use so many different materials in one lesson I believe hindered the delivery of my lesson. If I were to teach this lesson again I would limit the lesson to two different materials that way the students can focus more on the subtraction problems, and not have to think so much on how they were going to figure out the answer.

3. Without knowledge of subtraction I would not have been able to teach this lesson, because many students had complex questions about using the material to answer the problems. If I did not know enough about math and the materials that were being used I would have been stumped and would not have been able to answer the questions.

4. On adjustment that I had during this lesson came from the pre-assessment, and me noticing that not a single student knew how to use a number line. I knew the final assessment had a number line on it, so I added practice problems throughout the lesson that the student had to use their number line to figure out the answer. This allowed them some practice with using their number line, before their final assessment was given out.

5. Yes, the lesson objectives were met, and this was shown by the final assessment scores, and the increase in knowledge from the pre- to the post-assessment.

6. Yes, I believe the time management on this lesson was much better than on the first lesson I taught. The lesson was not too long, but every minute of the lesson was filled with important information, and that allowed me to get through the lesson in a timely manner.

7. After teaching this lesson I realized that I do not just need to assume they now how to use certain materials. I need to model for the students how to use each material before they use it on their own. This is because not all teachers use materials so not every student will know how to use them appropriately.

Reflection for Professional Development

1. My first goal to improve my professional development would be to go to a conference in which they teach about how to use different math materials. If there were not a conference that teaches about using different materials, I would conduct my own research on how to use different math material more affectively. If I had better knowledge on how to use different materials better I believe the math lesson would of ran smoother, and I would not have assumed that students knew how to use each material that I gave them.

2. My second professional development goal would be to learn how to better use the Smart Board. During the lesson I had trouble with using the Smart Board and that was because my lack of knowledge with it. To grow more professionally I would need to take a class on how to use the Smart Board, so that I would know how to have interactive activities on their correctly.

TWS 8 Reflections, Self-Evaluation, and Professional Development (Lesson 3)

TWS 8 Standard: The teacher analyzes the relationship between his or her instruction and student learning in order to improve teaching practice. The teacher uses on-going analysis of student learning to make instructional decisions. The teacher identifies area of need for personal professional growth.

Whole Class

A. Based on the data of the chart from TWS 4 and 6 the impact of the intervention was successful, because the students went up in their scores with each assessment. Each assessment allowed the students to be engaged, and for the pre- and during-assessments the students were working in groups. This allowed the student to move around, and talk to each other while working on their assessments. This was a positive intervention for many of the students, because they have a hard time sitting still and not talking. It also allowed the students who did not know much about the life cycle learn more about it from other members of their group.

B. While students were working in their small groups I took note of students’ progress on each assessment. This allowed me to see where I needed to review and what students were already understanding well. As I was walking around taking mental notes on each group I would stop and help each group one on one, and ask them different questions about the life cycle to see how much they were truly understanding of the lesson. This allowed me to make modifications to my lesson, when I found out that I needed to go back and reteach a part of the life cycle, because many of the groups did not understand that part of the lesson. As a result of these formative assessments all the students increased in their scores for their final assessment.

C. When teaching this lesson again, I would change the size of the groups to making them have only two to three in a group. I believe this would help each individual student out more, because they would have more opportunity to talk in the group, and would be able to voice their opinion about a question easier. Also by having less in a group I would get a better representation of what each student actually knows about the life cycle of a pumpkin.

Three Individual Students

A. My high achieving student is always attentive in class, and is always raising her hand to ask/ answer questions. She never misses a day of school, and is always reading very free chance she has. By her always reading she knows information about many different subjects, with one of those being plants. So she was the leader of her group, and she help all the other students in her group know exactly about a plant life cycle. She loves being the one in charge of other students, so she thrived off the opportunity of being able to tell the other students about the life cycle of a plant for the pre-assessment. This knowledge spread through each assessment for not only her but the other in her group as well.

a. During this lesson I do not believe she was appropriately challenged, because she easily made a 100 on every assessment. One way that I could challenge her would be to have extra challenge work for her to do when she finished each assessment. I also would have her a post-assessment in which she would have to think more critically about each question, instead of just filling in the answers and mapping out the life cycle in the appropriate order.

B. My low achieving student has no motivation to do his work, and that is what keeps putting him behind in the classroom. No matter how hard the teacher tries the student is not motivated, and that leads to him either falling asleep or staring off into blank space. However, for this lesson he had to move around a good bit, and work in a group and that helped him to be able to stay focused, and made him want to work on the assessments. Since was able to move around and talk he focused on the lesson a lot better, and was able to improve his assessment scores each time. This shows that he is capable of doing his work, but he needs activities in which he can move around and talk.

a. In the future I would make sure that this student is doing more hands on and small group activities, so that he can stay more focused in class. The only things I would change with him during this lesson would be to control his movement. During each activity we would annoy his group member because he could not stop moving. Even though he was paying close attention he was hindering students learning around him. So I would make sure to watch closely for those movements and distractions, so that no one will be distracted during the lesson.

C. My average achieving student is very shy, and does not like to do group work. He is very intelligent but when it comes to doing something with a group or in front of the teacher he gets very nervous. Once he gets shy/nervous he shuts down some and plays less attention to what is going on and more attention to his doodles that the does on his papers. For both the pre- and during-assessment he set back and just watched his classmates do the group work, but he gained information form just observing them because increased his scores to a 100 on the final assessment.

a. This student did very well and his scores increased from assessment to assessment, which showed me that he was still learning the information that he needed to be learning from the lesson. However, he would not communicate with any of his group members, so I would want to work on that with him. I would allow him to work in a group with a friend or two that he plays with some on the playground, and then have him answering questions in class that I know he can answer. That way he is boosting his confidence in both group work and speaking out in front of the class.

Reflection

1. This lesson was done on pumpkins because it was getting close to Halloween, and the students were talking about carving pumpkins at home. So pumpkins were used to teach the life cycle because it went along with the holiday, and with what many of the students were doing at home.

2. My selection of doing group work for both the pre- and during-assessments helped my students understand the life cycle of a pumpkin better. This is because they were more involved in the lesson then most other lessons, because they had many hands on activities in which they could move around and talk.

3. The students achieved the objective, however, I did not feel as well prepared with this lesson because I did not know much about life cycles of a pumpkin. I believe if I knew more about life cycles, and the science behind them that I would have been able to teach the lesson more productively.

4. After the pre-assessment I modified the groups a little before they went back for the during-assessment. This was done because some groups were struggling more than others, and I wanted students who understood the lesson in a group with those who did not understand the lesson so that they could help them throughout the assessment. Once this change was made the groups were more even, and there was more conversation going on about the assessment that they were working on.

5. Yes, the lesson objectives were met, and this was shown by the final-assessment scores, and the increase in knowledge form the pre- to the post-assessment.

6. Yes, I believe my time management on this lesson was very good. The students did two group activities, and wrote the words to their own pumpkin book in an appropriate amount of time for a science lesson. Also I believe the instructional time was maximized, because they were able to accomplish so many activities in a short amount of time.

7. During this lesson I learned that the majority of my students loved working in groups, and I learned that many of them excel when they work in groups, and preform activities that are hands on. However, there is still a few in the class that do not like group work, and do not prosper in-group work like the majority of the class. So that tells me that I need to balance out both my group work and my individual work.

Reflection for Professional Development

1. My first goal to improve my professional development is to work on being able to challenge students more. If that means going to different conferences on that topic, or doing my own research, I need to make sure each of my students are receiving a challenge. If they are not receiving a challenge in the lesson they are not getting anything out of the lesson, so that is why it is important for me to work on challenging my students throughout each lesson.

2. My second goal to improve my professional development would be to know more about the life cycle of a plant for the next time I teach this lesson. For me to be more knowledge about life cycles I would have to do more research on this topic before I teach the lesson again.

TWS 8 Reflections, Self-Evaluation, and Professional Development (Lesson 4)

TWS 8 Standard: The teacher analyzes the relationship between his or her instruction and student learning in order to improve teaching practice. The teacher uses on-going analysis of student learning to make instructional decisions. The teacher identifies area of need for personal professional growth.

Whole Class

A. Based on the data from the chart of TWS 4 and 6 the impact of the intervention was successful, because every student went up in their scoring from their pre-assessment, to their post-assessment. After the pre-assessment I noticed that the student needed to have a review about how to properly form a complete sentence. So instead of continuing on with the lesson, I stopped the lesson for a few minutes, and reviewed with the students how to properly write a complete sentence. This was done, because I knew the students had to write more sentences with the other two assessments and I wanted them to be able to improve on each assessment.

B. Based off of the pre-assessment, and my observations from walking around during the pre-assessment, I noticed that the students needed more help their writing complete sentences. So I stopped the lesson for a few minutes and review with the whole class how to write a complete sentence. This had a positive impact on the students learning, and that was shown through their different test scores, and how they got higher the more they worked on them. If I had not taken the time to review complete sentences, the students might not have grown in their knowledge of writing sentences.

C. When teaching this lesson, I would change some of the assessments. All of the assessments were very similar, and it bored the students and you could tell by looking on their faces. Even though this lessons focus was on writing complete sentences, I still think at least one of the assessments should have been changed to help better engage the student in their learning.

Three individual students

A. My high achieving student is always attentive in class, and is always raising her hand to ask questions. She never misses a day of school, and is always reading every time she has a free minute. I believe she was the most successful in the class with writing sentences, because she reads so much and has broaden her knowledge about sentence structure. She is one of the top readers in the class, and that was shown through her sentences that she was able to write.

a. I believe this student was challenged a good bit throughout this lesson, because she did not have much practice with writing complete sentences before this lesson. At the beginning she was struggling with the sentences, but one they were reviewed with the whole class she caught on, and did wonderfully throughout the rest of her assessments.

B. My low achieving student has no motivation to do his work, and that is what keeps putting him behind in the classroom. No matter how hard the teacher tries the child is not motivated, and that leads to him falling asleep or staring off into space. One reason for this lack of motivation is because the mom does not care about how well he does in school, and that has been stated multiple times. That is why he reading and writing levels are so low, because he has not encouragement coming from home so he does not care about school. Also he gets pulled out for speech so many times throughout the day that it is hard for him to even catch up if he wanted to. Since he has no motivation to do work he is placed to the side, so that he wants distract the teacher or the rest of the class. When he is placed to the side is when he tends to fall asleep the most and not care.

a. The first thing I would do differently is move the student to where he can be directly seen by the teacher, so that she can constantly be walking beside his desk to making sure he is paying attention. If he knows he is starting to get the attention form the teacher, and the teacher truly cares about him and wants him to succeed, he will start to pay closer attention. A second thing I would do, is pull the student aside during some free time and work one on one with him so that he can catch up on what he missed when he was pulled out of the classroom. This would help him slowly catch back up to the rest of the class.

C. My average achieving student is very shy, and does not like to do group work. He is very intelligent but when it comes to doing something with a group or in front of the teacher he gets very shy and nervous. Once he gets shy/nervous he shuts down some and pays less attention to the teacher, and more attention to his doodles he does on his papers. For this lesson there was no group activities and there was no talking in front of others, so he did very well on this assignment. Also he did well on this assignment because he loves to express his feeling by writing and drawing, and since this was a writing lesson he was able to do just that.

a. His performance during this lesson was good throughout each assessment, and he was very knowledgeable about sentence structure. So what I would want to work with him would be to share his wonderful sentences to the person that is sitting right beside him. That way he does not have to move, so he feels safe in his sit, but he is working on talking to others in the class.

Reflection

1. This lesson worked on sentence structure, and writing complete sentences. This reflects what students will have to do all their lives, and so it helped them to be able to improve their quality of writing. So that when they move to second grade they already know how to write good quality complete sentences.

2. I wish my assessment strategies varied more than they did, and that is what I would change if I had to reteach the lesson. The students got bored with each assessment and that was noticed during the third assessment. So I would change my assessments so that I could better enrich my lesson the next time I teach it.

3. Without full understanding of sentences, I would not have been able to teach this lesson. This is because I would not have noticed all the challenges that the students were having at the beginning of the lesson, and I would not have stopped and reviewed sentence structures with them at the very beginning of the lesson.

4. One modification I made was to stop the lesson after the pre-assessment and have the students review with me sentence structures. This helped the students’ progress during each assessment, and without it I do not believe students would of progressed like they did.

5. Yes, even though the students got bored with the assessments the lesson objectives were met. This was shown by the final assessment scores, and the increase in knowledge form the pre- to the post-assessments.

6. Yes, this lesson lasted right around 20-25 minutes, and during the lesson the students not only learned about bulling, but also learned about the proper way of writing a complete sentence. So I believe the instructional time was maximized to the best of my ability.

7. I learned that these students struggle with writing complete sentences, and that they need a lot more practice with writing sentences. So throughout different lessons I will have them focus on writing complete sentences.

Reflection for Professional Development

1. My first goal to improve my professional development would be to go to conferences on how to assess students. For lessons like this on I need to work on assessing my students in different ways, so that they will not lose focus throughout the lesson.

2. For my second goal of Professional Development I need to research other activities that can be done in order to teacher students about complete sentences, without having them always writing out sentences. This will allow the class to have more variety it if do research on this topic, and it would make learning about sentence structure more fun because you are not just writing sentence after sentence.

TWS 8 Reflections, Self-Evaluation, and Professional Development (Lesson 5)

TWS 8 Standard: The teacher analyzes the relationship between his or her instruction and student learning in order to improve teaching practice. The teacher uses on-going analysis of student learning to make instructional decisions. The teacher identifies area of need for personal professional growth.

Whole Class

A. Based on the data from the chart on TWS 4 and 6 the impact of the intervention was successful for the whole class. Students increased in their scores form the pre-assessment to their post-assessment. After the during-assessment was turned into Seesaw, and was being looked at by the whole class I begin to notice that many people had the same career choice that they were given at the beginning of the lesson. This showed me that the students did not know about many of the other career choses out there, so I began to share about more careers. Once the students were ready to take their post assessment that was about their dream career, I allowed them to change careers if they wanted to from the during-assessment collage. After I talked about many more careers I saw a wider range of careers that students chose to write about for their final assessment.

B. By observing and looking over the students’ during-assessment career choses I was able to see that many students did not have a wide range of career choses that they knew about. Once I observed this I tied more careers into the lesson, and that had a positive impact on the students’ final assessment. Their final assessment was more of a career they would truly want unlike the during-assessment, which was the career most of them were given at the beginning of the lesson.

C. An instructional strategy that I would change when teaching this lesson again, would be to emphasis more career choses before the during-assessment. That way the students can actually use their collage to write about their dream career. This would improve their learning about careers, and help them see what a career really is.

Three Individual Students

A. My high achieving student is always attentive in class, and is always raising her hand to ask/ answer questions. She never misses a day of school, and throughout the school day she is always reading every second she gets. I believe this is why she is the most successful student in the class, and why she did so well on all of her assessments for this lesson. She was also the only one that could tell me the different between a doctor and a nurse. She knew this information form the books she reads, and the way her parents focus on education at home.

a. For this lesson I do not believe this student was appropriately challenged. Yes, I believe she learned about different careers form this lesson, but I do not believe the assessments challenged her enough. I should have had challenge work for her to do once she was done completing each assessment, or I could have given her an assessment the made her think more complexly then the rest of the class. Next, time I teacher this lesson I will be sure to include more challenging work so that everyone can be challenged throughout the lesson.

B. My low achieving student has no motivation to do his work, and that is what keeps putting him behind in the classroom. No matter how hard the teacher tries to motivate the child he does not respond, but instead he will fall asleep or zone out. One reason for this lack of motivation is because the mom does not care about how well he does in school, and that has been stated multiple times. With her having a do not care attitude he has the same attitude in the classroom. Another reason this student is struggling in school is because he is pulled out quite a bit for speech. This is necessary because it is hard to understand him, due to the slang that is used at home. However, it is hindering him in class because he falls behind each time he is pulled out of a lesson. Lastly, he is hindered in the class because he is put to the side of the classroom so that he will not distract the teacher and the rest of the students. Once he is off to the side he tunes everything out and is in his own world and that is when he starts to give up on everything.

a. The first thing I would do differently is move the student to where he can be directly seen by the teacher, so that she can constantly walk beside him to make sure he is paying attention. Another thing that I would do differently would be to provide him with some one on one time. During the pre- and post- assessment, I would beside his table for a few minutes and give him some attention to help him stay attentive to the lesson and the assessments. Also I would make sure that he had plenty of time to move around during the lesson and talk, this would help him pay attention more because he is moving and doing hands on activities.

C. My average student is very shy, and does not like to do group work. He is very intelligent but when it comes to doing something with a group or in from of the teacher he gets very shy and nervous. Once he gets shy/nervous he shuts down some and pays less attention to what is going on and more attention to his doodles on his paper. For this lesson he was more focused than normal because the during- and post-assessments were just about him and his dream career. He loved making a Piccollage on the Ipads about his dream career, and that was shown through his above and beyond work that was displayed. He also enjoyed the post-assessment and how he got to write about his dream career. When it comes to writing about himself or doing activities on himself he is very alert and attentive. He was also very alert and attentive because the majority of the lesson was individualized work, and that made him feel more comfortable.

a. This student’s performance during this lesson was good, and he was gaining knowledge about what a career was. So what I would work on with this student would be his shy and nervousness. I would allow him to work in groups with his two friends in the classroom, that way he feels more comfortable, and I would allow him to work in partner groups with the student that sits beside him. That way he feels the security of sitting in his own desk. I would also ask him questions that I know he could answer to help him loose the fear of talking in front of the class.

Reflection

1. Lesson build upon students’ prior knowledge of careers, and allowed them to expand their knowledge about different careers. Many students know about jobs and what a job is, but they do not know what a career is, because many of the students’ family member do not have a career but instead have job after job. So this allows students to see how important education is so that they can find their career of their dream.

2. My selection of using Piccollage really allowed the students to get involved in the lesson, and allowed them to see many pictures of what their dream career looked like. This was a fun way for them to reflect on their skills and what they like to do in order to pick out a dream career.

3. My knowledge of understanding about different careers allowed me to answer many of the questions my students had about different careers they thought they might want to do. Some students were thinking outside the box when it came to their dream career, and having knowledge about careers all around me helped me answer their questions about these different careers that they were choosing.

4. After the during-assessment I noticed that many students had a collage of the same career that they had for the pre-assessment. Those made me think that the students did not have a much wider range of knowledge about other careers. So once the class was done looking at everyone’s career collages. I asked the class questions about other careers that were not listed, to stretch their horizons. This allowed them to think of many different careers, an allowed them to think of a true dream career to write about for their final assessment.

5. Yes, the lesson objectives were met, and this was shown by the final assessment scores, and the increase in knowledge from the pre- to the post-assessment.

6. Yes, I believe the instructional time was maximized, because in a short amount of time the students were taught about a career, did a picture collage on their dream career, and write about why it was their dream career.

7. During this lesson I learned that all of my students focused on the assessments when they were strictly about themselves. They loved talking about themselves, and that was evident in how well they paid attention in the lesson, and how well they performed on the during- and post-assessment.

Reflection for Professional Development

1. My first goal of professional development would be to do more research to find careers pre-assessment that would open the students minds up to more careers then the seven that I did for this pre-assessment. I think that if students had been exposed to more careers at the beginning that the during-assessments would have been more diverse then they were.

2. My second goal of professional development would be to go to several conferences that gave strategies to teach both SSCA and EEDA lesson inside of other lesson. That way a teacher does not have to spend separate time teaching about both bullying and careers. If a teacher isn’t spending extra time on these lesson they are able to cover more material, and the students will have a better understanding of both topics.