My Defense Of My Instructional Methodologies As They Apply To My District's Teaching Standards
I believe that having standards for teachers is very important. It is the only way to ensure that teachers reform their efforts and are able to ensure that all of their students are successful. Teachers can reflect on their practice by looking at how their instruction addresses the standards.
It is also important that clarity exists between a teacher's instructional methodologies and the standards for student learning. What must be learned and how it is taught should not be a secret. When a teacher opens their practice up to parents, administrators and other educators, it creates a venue for sharing instructional strategies and helps give teachers the feedback they need to improve.
With the goal of bettering my practice, I will document my instruction on an ongoing basis. Below is documentation of my instructional practice as it relates my district's criteria for successful teaching
It is also important that clarity exists between a teacher's instructional methodologies and the standards for student learning. What must be learned and how it is taught should not be a secret. When a teacher opens their practice up to parents, administrators and other educators, it creates a venue for sharing instructional strategies and helps give teachers the feedback they need to improve.
With the goal of bettering my practice, I will document my instruction on an ongoing basis. Below is documentation of my instructional practice as it relates my district's criteria for successful teaching
Participating in the Professional Community: Teacher’s relationships with colleagues are characterized by mutual support and cooperation, with teacher taking initiative in assuming leadership among the faculty. Teacher takes a leadership role in promoting a culture of professional inquiry. Teacher volunteers to participate in school events and district projects, making a substantial contribution and assuming a leadership role in at least one aspect of school or district life.
Growing and Developing Professionally: Teacher seeks out opportunities for professional development and makes a systematic effort to conduct action research. Teacher solicits feedback on practice from both supervisors and colleagues. Teacher initiates important activities to contribute to the profession.
Communicating with Families: Teacher communicates frequently with families in a culturally sensitive manner, with students contributing to the communication. Teacher responds to family concerns with professional and cultural sensitivity. Teacher’s efforts to engage families in the instructional program are frequent and successful.
Using Assessment in Instruction: Assessment is fully integrated into instruction, through extensive use of formative assessment. Students appear to be aware of, and there is some evidence that they have contributed to, the assessment criteria. Questions and assessments are used regularly to diagnose evidence of learning by individual students. A variety of forms of feedback, from both teacher and peers, is accurate and specific and advances learning. Students self-assess and monitor their own progress. Teacher successfully differentiates instruction to address individual students’ misunderstandings.
Showing Professionalism: Teacher can be counted on to hold the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and confidentiality and takes a leadership role with colleagues. Teacher is highly proactive in serving students, seeking out resources when needed. Teacher makes a concerted effort to challenge negative attitudes or practices to ensure that all students, particularly those traditionally underserved, are honored in the school. Teacher takes a leadership role in team or departmental decision-making and helps ensure that such decisions are based on the highest professional standards. Teacher complies fully with school and district regulations, taking a leadership role with colleagues.
o I dress professionally to maintain respect for my position as an educator, to establish credibility, and model appropriate behavior. I follow district and school guidelines for appearance and wear business formal or business casual clothes, which includes a tie, neutral shirts, and dress pants or slacks. I am careful about grooming, keeping my hair trimmed and beard cleanly shaven. Good teachers focus on important concepts that interrelate. They understand major themes in language arts, mathematics, science and social science. Good teachers create lessons that effectively teach different types of students.
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Reflecting on Teaching: Teacher’s system for maintaining information on student completion of assignments, student progress in learning, and noninstructional records is fully effective. Students contribute information and participate in maintaining the records.
Reflecting on Teaching: Teacher makes a thoughtful and accurate assessment of a lesson’s effectiveness and the extent to which it achieved its instructional outcomes, citing many specific examples from the lesson and weighing the relative strengths of each. Drawing on an extensive repertoire of skills, teacher offers specific alternative actions, complete with the probable success of different courses of action.
Effective Instruction: Teacher seizes an opportunity to enhance learning, building on a spontaneous event or student interests, or successfully adjusts and differentiates instruction to address individual student misunderstandings. Using an extensive repertoire of instructional strategies and soliciting additional resources from the school or community, teacher persists in seeking effective approaches for students who need help.
Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques: Teacher uses a variety or series of questions or prompts to challenge students cognitively, advance high-level thinking and discourse, and promote metacognition. Students formulate many questions, initiate topics, challenge one another’s thinking, and make unsolicited contributions. Students themselves ensure that all voices are heard in the discussion.
Teachers use a lesson plan with clear objectives for assessing student work. Assessments are adapted for individual students and if possible are designed with input from students.
Skilled teachers can document that their students are learning high-level information. They can clearly communicate their rational for instructional decision-making. They use effective tools of assessment to gage student learning and continually change their practice to best meet the needs of their students. Good teachers tailor their lessons for each of their individual students.
It’s important that lessons are planned in a logical and sequential manner, with learning being a steady accumulation of knowledge. Teachers need to use state and district learning goals to create lesson that are engaging and enriching. They need to correctly leveled (the right amount of difficulty) to make sure that all students challenged but not overwhelmed.
Engaging Students in Learning: Virtually all students are intellectually engaged in challenging content through well-designed learning tasks and activities that require complex thinking on their part. Teacher provides suitable scaffolding and challenges students to explain their thinking. There is evidence of some student initiation of inquiry and student contributions to the exploration of important content; students may serve as resources for one another.. The lesson has a clearly defined structure, and the pacing of the lesson provides students the time needed not only to intellectually engage with and reflect upon their learning but also to consolidate their understanding.
Communicating with Students: Teacher links the instructional purpose of the lesson to the larger curriculum; the directions and procedures are clear and anticipate possible student misunderstanding. Teacher’s explanation of content is thorough and clear, developing conceptual understanding through clear scaffolding and connecting with students’ interests. Students contribute to extending the content by explaining concepts to their classmates and suggesting strategies that might be used. Teacher’s spoken and written language is expressive, and teacher finds opportunities to extend students’ vocabularies, both within the discipline and for more general use. Students contribute to the correct use of academic vocabulary.
Teachers respect their students and communicate caring and sensitivity towards them. Students in return respect their teacher and are friendly with their classmates. The teachers actively creates an environment where all students feel valued and are comfortable in taking intellectual risks.
I believe disrespectful behavior will sometimes occur; cultural and social values and ways of showing respect differ from student to student. Some ‘disrespectful’ behavior is not intentional, and interpersonal conflict between peers can sometimes be the result of miscommunication or a lack of social skills (something that students cannot always be accountable for). I believe that all children are innately good people and are instinctively kind. I explicitly teach this belief to my students and make a point of modeling the appreciation of all people. The procedures I use for addressing disrespectful behavior are the same that my students use. I first list my observation of what the student is doing and share why I feel that the behavior needs to be changed. I use a neutral tone and body language and maintain self-assurance. If appropriate, I help the student get what they want. If inappropriate, I move through the behavior management system outlined in my classroom policies. I see my students use this positive system of correcting behavior with their peers. For example, one of my students has a sometimes-inappropriate understanding of personal space. Unintentionally, he sits too closely to classmates or touches them without permission. I support his peers as they address this social problem. I help them understand the intention of this student and facilitate a discussion of what each person wants. |