Reflecting+on+Teaching

//In the following, I was able reflect on my practice using the Charlotte Danielson's framework. This assignment was in the course of our class, "A Reflective Teacher" taught by Mrs. Bridget Doogan through Buffalo State University.//

In the following, I will reflect on my teaching practice. I will first discuss how my current practice faired up with Charlotte Danielson’s levels of performance. I will then talk about my areas of strength, and some areas that I should improve on. I will determine the areas where I need to bolster mastery in the content of my subject area. I will determine which new pedagogical development I would like to incorporate in my daily practice, and conclude on a general reflection on my practice. Doing this exercise of reflection was really eye-opening in ways that it showed me where my strengths and short-comings are. I thought it was pretty easy to navigate through the four domains, and see where my performance stood among the four levels of performance. After the twenty minute self-assessment on my practice, one could start to see a picture immerge. I noticed my strengths were in the following two domains: The classroom environment and professional responsibilities. I think that I am really comfortable with the classroom environment (procedures, routines, behaviour etc.). Another area that I believe that I am truly proficient is with the component Professional responsibilities. I always go above of what is required from teachers in school. I volunteer to fundraisers, chaperone trips and dances. I plan social events for the staff to get together and bond. I also sign up for many professional growth opportunities in my school board. In contrast, in domain one, I gave myself a basic level in “Demonstrating knowledge of resources and designing coherent instruction”. For the reason being that I feel that my lessons are sometimes too straight-out of textbook. I should seek other external authentic material to support my teachings (websites and newspaper clipping). Sometimes I feel that my assessments often reflect content learning rather than understanding. However, I recently started evaluating students on concepts rather than factual knowledge. For example, in my social studies grade 7, we covered the rise and fall of Rome. I made sure to cover the 3 spheres (political, economic and social) that any civilization must address in order for it to thrive. As I gain experience and become more comfortable in the subject-area, I now know what big ideas I want students to grasp. I started my teaching career as an ESL teacher. Five years ago, my principal at the time decided to offer me a social studies teaching load, and I was up for the challenge. In the past four years, I have equipped myself with knowledge of the social studies curriculum. In addition, I never miss an opportunity to go to a social studies conference. During these years, I also have been mentored by veteran social studies teachers who have helped me understand the big ideas that need to be passed down to the students. My classes would really benefit from having more technology in class. As I learned earlier this year with the class “Educational Technologies”, our students are also called “digital natives”. We must make sure that we teach them using some of the everyday technology that they are accustomed to. This is something that I really want to incorporate this year in my classes for example, I could use pod casts, blogs, Skype etc. This would also motivate the students, and really get them involved in the learning. As I was researching an article on [|www.edutopia.org], I came across an article about engaging students in digital discussions. Laila Weir introduces a new website called [|www.voicethread.com], it is like a multimedia photo albums where students share their views on different documents, videos and pictures. The students can either reply in the form of a typed, “cammed”, or an audio comment. The teacher can also decide if it will be a shared or private site. It allows people from all around the world to exchange on different topics on the site. I would probably use it to exchange with school in another part of the world. I would obviously experiment with the program before introducing this to the class. I would love someday to breakdown the walls of my classroom, and enter the digital world with my students, who are also known as the digital natives! In conclusion, I am really enjoying this framework for evaluating educator. It took a lot of honesty to go over the self-assessment, but I am happy that I was honest with myself. I now know which area I should focus more, in order to become a better teacher. That is the nature of our profession, just like dentists and doctors; we always need to seek ways to better our craft. Someday, I hope to be able to assist and assess other teachers when I will be leading a team of teachers! Weir,Laila. //VoiceThreads: Extending the Classroom with Interactive Multimedia Albums.// Retrieved February 19th 2009 from  []