Teacher Inquiry Report

Context of the Project

School, Classroom Context, and Students’ Backgrounds

Central Crossing High School is part of the South Western City School District.  It opened in 2002, as the district continued to expand with an influx of immigrants.  At the freshman level, there are different levels of classes beginning with Sheltered classes specifically for ELL students, as well as Silver and Gold Dyad classes designating different ability groupings.  The school website states that the mission for their school “in partnership with the community, is to enable each learner to achieve excellence in a challenging, safe environment while promoting a sense of belonging and mutual respect for our diverse population.  Students will demonstrate proficiency in academic standards, including communication skills and technical knowledge, as the staff will work to advance life long learning for all students.”  This draws off of Dewey’s theories and makes sense due to the diverse population that they referenced.  The school averages around 1660 students in classes everyday, with 14% Black, 2.1% Asian, 5.5% Hispanic, 1.4% Multi-Racial, and 76.7% White.  They are diverse in other ways as well, with 35.5% being economically disadvantaged, 8.2% having limited English proficiency, 13.9% having disabilities (Central Crossing High School).

The classroom I am observing is a very different setup from the traditional classroom.  Dyad classes are arranged so that the teacher is actually instructing two classes at once, in a double classroom.  This means that there are two adjoining rooms that have an optional wall between them.  My mentor teacher and her team teacher, a social studies teacher, have opted to do nearly all their lessons jointly, meaning the wall is rarely, if ever, closed.  The arrangement of the desks is in rows, reflecting the teacher-centered orientation of the class.

The Silver Dyad inclusion class has an average reading level of about third grade, though it ranges from about first to eighth grade level readers.  I found through my survey that most of the students really do not like their English class, though in general they do see the use of taking English.  I have also found that they do not have much confidence in their reading, but do not know what they need to improve on (see Appendix A).   One of my mentor teacher’s goals is to, if not help the students enjoy reading, at least make it a task that is no longer so arduous.  One of the ways she works to accomplish this is by always doing all the reading for class out loud, this way students are not burdened with reading for homework that they would struggle to understand.  Something interesting that Heather has noticed is that her “stronger readers tend to not like writing, and [her] stronger writers really do not like to read” (Barnes).  One of the ways she encourages every one to read is through peer pressure.  When the class reads aloud students call on one another to read, and when called on, the student must read at least one sentence before calling on someone else.

The Silver Dyad class is an overview of different literary genres.  They have studied mythology, novels, short stories, and plays.  The reading focuses mainly on basic comprehension skills that will be required on the Ohio Graduation Test, as well as some deeper thinking analyses of texts.  The writing the class focuses on is also based on the OGT requirements.  They focus heavily on the five-paragraph essay, though they also do writing to learn activities, as well as fill out worksheets to aid comprehension and understanding (see Appendix C).

Your Role as Teacher in this Classroom

For my multi-day teaching lesson I taught “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, and had the classes focus on the term heritage and what it means in general, and what it means to them.  The first two days of the lesson we read the story aloud, and the teaching was presented mainly through a transmission mode of learning, with me asking recitation style comprehension questions intermittently throughout the reading.  I think I did this because I needed to be sure students understood the general plot and idea of the story before we could move into a discussion about the story.  The third day I acted as a facilitator for discussion, pushing students to deepen their understanding of heritage.  I was still more of a focal point in the classroom than I would have liked because the students were unfamiliar with the discussion format and so needed more direct support and scaffolding from me.

I did not have as good of a working relationship with these students as I would have liked.  I had a hard time remembering their names, and that was a huge obstacle to work with when trying to facilitate a discussion with reluctant students.  I was not as effective as I could have been in communicating the material to the students and creating a sense of urgency for them to learn it.  I also did not feel as though I had much in the way of power or agency with these students.  I think in part this was because I was treated as strictly an observer, rather than a teacher, so when I got up in front of the classroom, the students were already predisposed to disregard half of what I said.

This is a very different context than the one I experienced at Westerville Central High School in the autumn.  During that placement I had already developed a strong rapport with the students by working with them nearly every day, and so they worked well with me in my lesson.  They participated well with the short lectures, and then were excited about the writing assignment I gave them because it allowed them a lot of freedom to express their own opinion.  I think one of the issues with my students this quarter was that I did not know them well enough to choose content for my lesson that they could relate to.

Learning Goals – Plan Relations

For my lesson I taught “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, and had the classes focus on the term heritage and what it means in general, and what it means to them (see Appendix F).  The goals for my lesson were for students to develop an opinion on a text and be able to support that opinion with examples from the text.  I also wanted student to explore multiple perspectives when working through their opinion.

I began my multi-day teaching with an introductory activity about what the students’ names are, what they mean, and if they would change them.  We had a brief discussion around this introductory activity, leading into the concept of family names.  I then wrote the word ‘heritage’ on the board and as my pre-test, as students to write down what they thought heritage meant, or any guesses that they had about the meaning of it.  We then went on to read the story aloud.  My mentor-teacher has set up the class so that students do all reading for class in class and out loud.

As we read the story, I would stop the students occasionally to ask them questions about what they would read, or to clarify different points.  This was mostly done in a recitation format.  The first day I had the students do most of the reading, but the second day I decided to change my plans a little and I read the last part of the story out loud.  The students seemed to have a better comprehension of the story when I read aloud, versus when they read aloud.  On the second day, after having read the story I had time left over.  I had originally planned to engage students in a discussion, but changed my plans due to their inexperience having class discussions.  I instead had the class respond to a Dear Abby article regarding family heirlooms that related to the story.  We then talked about what they written as their response to this letter.

On the third and final day of my multi-day teaching I heavily scaffolded students into a class discussion around heritage and the different ways of valuing it.  I had students fill out a discussion web that forced them to examine both sides of an argument.  I used this graphic organizer as a way for students to gather their ideas together in a group before we moved into the discussion.  I was not sure how they would do speaking on the fly, so I gave them something they could fill out and reference in the discussion.  We then came together and used the points they came up with to support the side of the argument they agreed with, while I challenged them with points from the opposing side.

One of the big challenges I faced was discussion etiquette.  The students had never really participated in a class discussion before, and so they did not know how to act in a discussion setting.  They were talking about unrelated subjects while their peers were making contributions to the discussion.  This presented a challenge for me because the reason the discussion had worth was because it gave students a chance to hear multiple perspectives about an argument, but because the students were not respecting each other and listening to each other’s comments, then the purpose of the discussion was undermined.  There were a lot of good ideas that I could have built on had I not had to devote as much attention to classroom management and just struggling to hear the students myself.

Your Teaching and Your Students’ Learning

Description of How Your Teaching Unfolded

I began my multi-day teaching with an introductory activity about what the students’ names are, what they mean or where they came from, and if they would change them (see Appendix G).  We had a brief discussion around this introductory activity, leading into the concept of family names.  Students seemed quite willing to share, though their responses remained rather superficial. The idea was for them to do this activity with no inclination of how it would relate to the story, but in hindsight perhaps it would have been better to give them some background on that section of the story, and then had them write.

After this introductory activity I wrote the word ‘heritage’ on the board and as my pre-test, as students to write down what they thought heritage meant, or any guesses that they had about the meaning of it.  This was difficult for the students, as some did not even have a clue what it was.  I tried to give examples, but it was hard to do so without them latching onto my definition as the correct one.  We then went on to read the story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker aloud.  My mentor-teacher had set up the class so that students did all reading for class in class and out loud.

As we read the story, I would stop the students occasionally to ask them questions about what they would read, or to clarify different points.  We engaged in some mini-discussion along the way.  These did not generally last long, but were useful in allowing students to explore the text.  I tried to focus my own speaking here on not guiding them towards a specific answer, but letting them develop their own meanings.  Most of the students did not seem used to this freedom, and were not sure how to respond.  The first day I had the students do most of the reading, but the second day I decided to change my plans a little and I read the last part of the story out loud.  The students seemed to have a better comprehension of the story when I read aloud, versus when they read aloud.

On the second day, after having read the story I had time left over.  I had originally planned to engage students in a discussion, but changed my plans due to their inexperience having class discussions.  I instead had the class respond to a Dear Abby article regarding family heirlooms that related to the story.  We then talked about what they written as their response to this letter (see Appendix G).  This discussion went really well, and the students got really into it, bringing in their own personal perspective.  They had a lot of great ideas, and I heard from students who do not speak up very often in class, giving me suggestions for how they would respond to this article.

On the third and final day of my multi-day teaching I heavily scaffolded students into a class discussion around heritage and the different ways of valuing it.  I had students fill out a discussion web that forced them to examine both sides of an argument.  I used this graphic organizer as a way for students to gather their ideas together in a group before we moved into the discussion.  I was not sure how they would do speaking on the fly, so I gave them something they could fill out and reference throughout the discussion.  The discussion web worked well, but there was some tension in the classroom at first when I had the student get into pairs, they did not want to work with only one other person, and then when the pairs formed groups of four, some pairs did not want to mix again.  The group mixing was an important aspect of the activity because it allowed the pairs to hear differing perspective and gain new insights into the text.  I tried to be firm with the groups about mixing into groups of four, but in some instances it was not worth the fight because they were doing the work, so I let them form bigger groups than I had originally planned.

We then came together for a whole class discussion and used the points they came up with to support the side of the argument they agreed with, while I challenged them with points from the opposing side.  This decision to challenge them on their points came as a result of the fact that there were only about 3 or 4 different points the class came up with and shared, so I threw those points back into the discussion, rephrasing them and asking students to refute them.  Often times, students had a good point to refute my argument on their discussion web (see Appendix G), and just had not shared it with the class.  This argumentative format allowed for more students to share what they had written and more viewpoints to be heard.  At the end of the discussion for my post-test, I again asked students what they thought heritage meant, and to tell me one new thing they would learned during the lesson (see Appendix F).

I think overall that this was an effective discussion as a beginning discussion with this group of students.  I think students got some good ideas from it, and learned at least that there are differing viewpoints, if not how to argue them quite yet.  When talking to students after my teaching they felt that they would learned something more about heritage, what it means, and the differing ways of appreciating it (see Appendix D).  They also said I did good job of making them feel like their opinion was beneficial to the class, and they felt safe sharing it.  One of the students mentioned that she was frustrated with the amount of talking happening in the room during the discussion.  Another student admitted that the story was boring, and that he slept through part of it, but enjoyed the discussion format (Students).

Analysis of the Video

I chose to use the whole class discussion section of my lesson for the video analysis session because it is a good sampling of how the all the mini discussions had a tendency to go.  There was great potential for students to explore their envisionment of the text, but due to the excessive amount of chattering I tried to push through the discussion because it seemed like a waste of time.  This was because the good ideas that were being voiced by the students were not being heard by their peers in the class, as so I tried to keep everyone as on task as possible, and as a result ended up short-changing the discussion (see Appendix H).

My teaching focused strongly on the assumption that multiple perspectives are useful.  I was trying to get students to consider how they might argue the other side of an argument.  This lesson, with more time, could easily have moved into a lesson on writing an argumentative paper, as students were learning to consider how someone might find fault with their argument.   I also tried to focus on putting questions at the center of the literary experience, but I found when I went back through my transcriptions, because I had given the students a question to begin with and had them focusing more on multiple perspectives, and how they could answer that question, they did not focus nearly as much on voicing their own questions about the text.  These are good examples of how I attempting to guide the discussion through a demonstration of Langer’s principles of envisionment (Langer 56-60)

The video analysis session with my peers was helpful in validating my own observations about my teaching.  Some helpful suggestions were provided, such as for the whole class discussion I may have found it more beneficial to put the students back in rows before discussing, rather than letting them stay in their groups.  This would have made it so there would no longer be any students who had their backs to me.  This problem of students not respecting each other or me with their talking could also have been mediated by outlining some guidelines before beginning the discussion.  This was something my peers pointed out to me that I had not even considered, but probably should have because I knew that the students were new to class discussions, and so would not already know what some guidelines should be.  Another improvement that I could make in regards to the talking that was suggested by my peers was to strive not to talk over students.  I am not sure how the discussion would have gone had I not talked over the students because the majority of them when talking were not discussing the assignment, rather their personal lives outside of school.  I suspect just standing at the front and waiting for the students to stop talking and pay attention would not have worked.  I think if I ad tried this strategy they would have been fine just continuing to talk amongst themselves.

One observation that both my peers and I made about my discussion was that I moved through it too quickly. There were instances where I could have asked students to elaborate on a point that they made, rather than moving onto the next group and asking for their opinion.  I am not sure how this would have played out because I had to do a lot of prompting to get the responses I did.  I am not sure students would have understood what I meant had I asked them to tell me more about their point.  I did a good job of taking in what my students were saying and responding accordingly to their points, as well as doing a good job staying on track with my lesson despite the distractions that my class was creating.

Analysis of Student Responses to Your Pre- and Post-Assessment

In order to make sense of and see patterns in my data, I conducted a series of analyses that began with looking at the differences in the responses in the pre- and post-tests that I gave (see Appendix B).  This test was just the one question asking students to tell me what they thought heritage meant.  For the pre-test I got a huge range of responses: some students already had a really good grasp of some of the meanings of heritage, and others simply had no idea, probably had never heard the word before I asked that question, and took a wild guess.

For the post-test I asked students to add or change one thing form their original definition of heritage, to show me what they had learned during the lessons.  I ended up having to disregard the responses form the first period class because I asked them to make the changes on their paper that I had handed back to them, and I only got back about 4 responses from the class of 30 students.  For the second period class I got many more responses back because I instead asked them to flip over the sheet they would already been working on and to write me a new definition for what they thought heritage meant, including any changes they thought they had from their previous definition.  I found that asking students to find a paper I had passed back early that class was one step to many for most of the students, and that they responded much better when I asked them to simply write on the piece of paper they already had in their hands.

Another method I used to analyze and make sense of my data was to examine the responses that students wrote down in their discussion webs.  I was specifically interested in seeing if students had nay points written in their discussion webs that had not been presented and discussed as a class.  I found that about half the students had additional responses that had not been shared with the class at large.  While this was disappointing in the sense that some students did not participate as much as they could have in the discussion by contributing some more viewpoints, it was also heartening in the sense that some students clearly were able to respond to the question without the support of the class.  The had ideas that differed from what the class talked about, and thus made some connections to the text on their own without my specific prompting.

A General Description of Findings

This report has been significant in helping me to identify where I am still struggling in my teaching and communication with students.  I have been able to focus, through my findings, on what areas need improvement because I have seen where students met or missed the mark on my expectations.  The purpose of my study becomes clearer and more significant when read in the light of other work (Langer; McCann et al.; Beach et al.)  I worked to facilitate an authentic discussion during out whole class discussion of the text.  Unfortunately the discussion fell a little short due to both the students lack of experience discussing, and my lack of experience facilitating a discussion by asking students to elaborate on the points that they were making.  I moved to quickly through the discussion and ended up cutting off what could have been an excellent authentic conversation about heritage.

My lesson centered around the concept of heritage: what it is, how to define it, and how to appreciate it.  I attempted to measure this in my pre- and post-tests when I asked students what heritage meant to them, and what they thought it was.  After my lesson students were better able to narrow down or augment their definition of heritage.  For example, Matt took ideas from the Dear Abby article and expanded his original definition to include the idea of inheritance.  Another student, Jessica, had originally described heritage by listing some of her family’s traditions, but then for the post-test narrowed her focus down to include the idea of inheritance (see Appendix G).

When I interviewed a sampling of the students about how they felt about my lesson, one of them said she felt like she learned more about what heritage means, and that there are “all different kinds of ways of valuing [it]” (Students).  I had hoped that they would get this out of the lesson.  I also hoped that would learn about valuing differing perspectives, as Langer mentions in his principles of envisionment, but in the interview the students did not explicitly mention that, though they did demonstrate it when filling out their discussion webs.  They did fairly well coming up with ideas for both sides of the question (see Appendix G).

Most of the students who completed both the pre- and post-test made some clarification or specification in their definition; however, there were many students, especially in the first period class, who did not complete the post-test.  I do not know if this was because they did not feel like completing the work, or if they did not know what to write down to expand or modify their definition.  Every group turned in a discussion and about three quarters of the class did not have anymore written down than what we had discussed in class, about a fourth of the class had a discussion with additional points that had not been brought up in class.  This shows that at least some were really giving thought to the multiple perspectives about appreciating heritage that are out there.

Reflection and Analysis

I think the most challenging thing about the two classes during my multi-day teach was the motivation.  It was hard to convince the students to do the work because they just were not interested and did not want to be at school.  I did not know them that well so I could not really cater to their interests, the best I can do is take what they gave me during a discussion, and run with it.

Getting the class to read and have on topic discussions was also difficult due to classroom management problems.  There were a lot of kids sleeping or with their heads down, and there were lots of side conversations going on.    My mentor teacher suggested that I start off class by warning the students that if they get too chatty, I may move them, or if they are sleeping that I may have them stand for the rest of the class.  It sounds like an excellent idea, but I do not know if I could follow through on those threats because I had never seen my mentor teacher follow through on any.  It is also hard to do much classroom management because I only know the names of a few students in the class.  I decided to use popsicle sticks with names on them for the second day of teaching to get students to participate, and that helped a little bit on that front.  My peers during the video analysis section suggested that when I have a discussion after doing group work to have the students arrange themselves back in their rows.  This way they would not have their backs to me and would be in the set-up they were used to for whole class time.

Another thing that I noticed while teaching was my level of comfort between first and second period.  I did not experience this last quarter during my multi-day teach because my mentor teacher last quarter only taught one of each class, so there was no opportunity to double up.  I found that after having done the lesson during first period, I was able to make some minor adjustments to what I was doing second period, and because I had already taught the lesson once, I was much more confident in my teaching during second period.  I asked slightly different questions, and asked the students to write down slightly different things between the two periods.

The students did seem to have a better grasp of the definition of heritage, what it meant to them, and the different ways of appreciating it after the lesson.  One of the student’s I interviewed after the lesson said she felt like she knew more about heritage now than she did before the lesson began (Students).  I also think the students learned about arguing an idea from both sides.  This was not something that I explicitly taught, but the further we moved into the discussion and the more I asked students to refute a point that I had made with appoint of their own, the more comfortable they got with the practice, and the quicker they were to argue with me and provide counter examples.

My mentor teacher thought I did fairly well with the lesson I had prepared, but that I need to know more about the students so that I can choose an adequate text for the class as a whole.  “Everyday Use” was a little long for the inclusion class, and I realized this after the first day of reading, but could not change my plans to incorporate a different text at that point due to school copy policies.  She also thought that I seemed a little uncomfortable during the lesson: I did not walk around much, and was hesitant to really get on students about not paying attention.  She also thought that I was really professional, prepared, and flexible when dealing with changing schedules due to the snow days (see Appendix I).

My cohort colleague noticed the same thing I did about my class being excessively chatty.  She thought I did well dealing with the noise level, and being firm about staying on track with my lesson and my expectations.  She noted that I could be explicit about instructions regarding group work than I was.  Mainly the issue revolved around the amount of extraneous chatter in the room (see Appendix K).

My university supervisor thought that my lesson went well overall.  She noted that I did well in providing a space for every student to have a voice and make connections to their own lives, but that I should think of strategies to actively engage students.  She thought I did good job picking an appropriate text for the students and grade level, as well as providing opportunities for students with multiple intelligences to excel, which is especially evidenced by some of the student work (see Appendix G).  I was also reflective in my teaching, and willing to make necessary changes between lessons (see Appendix J).

Implications of the Study

Given the opportunity to re-teach this lesson I would first have to better consider my students.  One of the main problems I found with my lesson was that the students had no interest in the story, and so discussion became difficult because students either did not pay attention during the reading of the story or could find almost no connections to their personal lives in the story.  If I were to teach a lesson again using this story and focusing on heritage, I would want to precede the unit with some knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement, and use that as a basis for discussing some of what happens in the story.

However, if I were to again teach a lesson focusing on multiple viewpoints, I would change the story I used all together.  One of the things my mentor teacher mentions in her evaluation was that “Everyday Use” was a little bit long for the inclusion class to be reading in that short amount of time (see Appendix I).  I need to work on remembering that not all students are at the expected reading level, and that event he reading level within the class varies.  Therefore, I need to work on overcoming the assumption that students should all be able to read and understand a text I am presenting, and find ways to better support them in their learning.  I would probably use a text such as “All of Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury instead.  It has the same opportunities for students to examine multiple viewpoints and debate various aspects of the story, but it is also short and at a lower reading level, which would probably cater more to the students in the class.  It also is a story about students, and presented in such a way that students would be able to better relate to it.

The students did seem to learn about heritage from my teaching, as is evidenced by their pre- and post-tests.  They also came up with many good points from both Dee’s and Maggie’s points of view regarding heritage and appreciating them, and thus were learning how to see an argument from multiple points of view.  One of the things that I found difficult about this lesson was what to do about absentee students.  Because we were reading the story aloud in class, and students are not required to reading at home, I did not know how to involve a student in discussion who had not read the story, or how to include them in the class beyond summarizing the story, or having them read silently while the rest of the class worked.

I found doing teacher inquiry in my classroom for this field experience to be a beneficial learning experience because I was able to carefully analyze where my teaching fell short, and where I succeeded in helping students to learn.  I was able to support and supplement my examination of my own teaching by analyzing it through the frameworks and lenses provided by Langer, McCann et al., and Beach et al.  This helped me not only to see where I need improvement, but ways in which I can focus and guide my improvement to better help and support students in their learning.

References

“Central Crossing High School.” Southwestern City Schools. 22 Sep 2008. Southwestern

City Schools, Web. 25 Feb 2010. <http://www.swcs.k12.oh.us/Schools/High

%20schools/central_crossing__high_school.htm>.

Barnes, Heather. Personal interview.  14 Jan. 2010.

Beach, Richard et. al., Teaching Literature to Adolescents. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates Inc., 2006.

Langer, Judith A., Envisioning Literature. Columbus University: Teachers College Press,

1995.

McCann, Thomas M., et. al., Talking in Class: Using Discussion to Enhance Teaching and

Learning. National Council of Teachers of English, 2006.

Students, MDT focal class.  Personal interview.  18 Feb. 2010.

Appendices

Appendix A: Student Survey

Appendix B: Pre- and Post-Test

Appendix C: Interview Questions for Mentor Teacher

Appendix D: Interview Questions for Case Study Students

Appendix E: Materials and Handouts

Appendix F: Lesson Plans for Multi-Day Teaching

Appendix G: Student Work Samples

Appendix H: Analytic Memo

Appendix I: Written Response from Mentor-Teacher

Appendix J: Written Response form University Supervisor

Appendix K: Written Response from Cohort Colleague

Domain C Exhibits: Teaching for Student Learning

When doing my multi-day teach in autumn one of the assignments I had my students complete was a parody of the article “How to be a Good Wife.”  I provided students with an exemplary example of student work from the previous year, in addition to providing them with a rubric that outlined the expectations.  This is in line with criterion C₁ because it helped to make learning goals clear to the students.

In my multi-day teach winter quarter I had students access some of their prior knowledge when I had them consider why a sibling who went off to college or to join the military would want to come home again.  Because I had helped them access their prior knowledge and experience, I was then able to help them apply that knowledge to the current aspect of learning.  This was in line with criterion C₂, helping to making content comprehensible to students.

Another way I worked to make content comprehensible to students was by varying my teaching strategies to appeal to a larger number of students.  One of the ways I did this winter quarter was by varying the format of my lessons, such as reading aloud, lecture, recitation, small group work, and whole class discussion.  I also appeal to students’ multiple intelligences by allowing them to write or draw their answers to some of my questions.

In autumn quarter I communicated to my students a sense of relevancy by showing them an example of a Twilight parody involving Buffy the Vampire Slayer in my multi-day teach.   I also used Smart Board technology as a way to reach students with varied learning styles.  This use of pop culture and technology allowed me to appeal to students in a variety of formats that they might be more familiar and responsive to than traditional lectures.  By bringing relevant content into the classroom I was working toward making the content more comprehensible to students.  This fits in with criterion C₂.

Making discussion both meaningful and authentic will help encourage students to extend their thinking, the requirement for criterion C₃.  One of the ways I did this in my winter quarter multi-day teach was during the Dear Abby response letter discussion.  Students were interested in the controversy that this article presented, and felt like the discussion was a low-risk environment.  In my interview with one of the students she said she “felt safe talking in class, and like no one would make fun of her for what [she] said.”  One of the ways I worked to make students feel safe was by having them work first in small, heterogeneous groups.  In the winter I had them mix partner sets before our whole class discussion in order to hear new ideas from their peers, and in the autumn I had student work in groups on the poetry strips project.  The group work allowed students to hear other ideas and engage with their peers in order to expand and extend their thinking.

In my multi-day teaching winter quarter I used a pre- and post-test to monitor students’ understandings of the content, as described in criterion C₄.  I was able to see how students’ understandings had changed over the course of the lesson, and was able to use the pre-test as a means of formative assessment in order to make minute changes to my plans in order to accommodate students.  I also used a discussion web to help scaffold my students into a whole class discussion format, which they were unfamiliar with.  Another aspect of criterion C₄ that I address in this lesson was adjusting learning activities as the situation demands.  I had originally planned to go into a brief discussion of the text the class was reading on the second day of the lesson, but decided that my students weren’t ready to do that yet, and so I make a quick decision to instead use a related Dear Abby article for them to write a response to.

Having students write a response to this Dear Abby article wouldn’t’ have happened if I hadn’t already had it planned as a possible back-up plan, which is one thing teachers can do to use instructional time effectively, meeting criterion C₅.  Because I had a good idea of what I needed to accomplish in my lesson, and had planned back-up options in case the students got done early or weren’t ready to move forward with the plan, I was able to be both prepared and effective in my teaching.

Domain D: Teacher Professionalism

Professionalism means more than just dressing nice and displaying appropriate behavior, though those are important parts of it.  Professionalism in the case of a teacher means not only doing her job in educating the students, but constantly striving to do better at this job.  This means reflecting on her teaching and making changes where necessary, seeking out other professionals and their insights to help adjust her teaching, and helping the students and parents to get on board with her instruction and have confidence that the job can be done.

Criterion D₁ : Reflecting on the Extent to Which the Learning Goals Were Met

Reflection allows the teacher to change her plans, whether it be for the next day or the next year.  Upon reflection she can adjust her strategies for teaching and decide how to help her student better meet the learning goals, helping herself to become a better teacher.  The teacher can also have students self-assess.  This will help the teacher to reflect on whether or not her learning goals were clear, and how secure the students felt with the material.

Criterion D₂: Demonstrating a Sense of Efficacy

Efficacy is a tricky word that is defined as “the capacity for producing a desired result or effect.”  This means that for the teacher to demonstrate a sense of efficacy, she must know that she can, and more importantly will, teach anyone, and that she can, and will, do that job.  The teacher should have a sense of responsibility for her students and for their learning.  If she feels that they are capable learners and can become a positive impact on the world, altering society and the environment for the better, then that confidence will transfer to the students and help them to meet those high standards.  By having and showing confidence in her students the teacher is demonstrating more than effectiveness, she is demonstrating efficacy.

Criterion D₃: Building Professional Relationships with Colleagues to Share Teaching Insights and to Coordinate Learning Activities for Students

A teacher cannot encounter every situation, nor have every good idea herself.  That is why is important for her to develop professional relationships with her colleagues and become a member of the larger professional community of teachers.  By working with other teachers in her field, she can bounce ideas around and develop better, and clearer plans for instruction.  She can also work with teachers across the curriculum to make plans that will help students to make connections between subject areas.  Not only is this good professional behavior, it will ultimately benefit the students.  Professional organizations such as OCTELA and NCTE provide unique opportunities for teachers to share ideas across a broader range.  Teachers can gain insights from teachers outside of their district, often encountering vesting different viewpoints and ideas to improve their own teaching.

Criterion D₄: Communicating with Parents or Guardians About Student Learning

Nurturing a positive relationship with the parents or guardians of students is very important in the education of the students.  The teacher can begin to develop this relationship by connecting with parents first on a positive level and the continuing to keep parents up to date on what is going on in the classroom in general, and with their child specifically.  It is also for the teacher to be inclusive.  This means she shouldn’t assume that all parents and guardians have computer and internet access, nor should she assume that papers sent home with the students would make it to the parent if the parent doesn’t know they’re coming.  The teacher should also remember that simply because a parent isn’t present or active in the school doesn’t mean that the parent is apathetic about their child’s education.

Domain C: Teaching for Student Learning

In order for a teacher to teach for the best effect on her students’ learning there are several things she must consider in her planning.  She needs to be sure to appeal to as many learning profiles as she can in order to help more of her students understand the content that she is teaching.  In order to do this she should be constantly reflecting and re-evaluating her planning through the use of formative assessment.

Criterion C₁ : Making Learning Goals and Instructional Procedures Clear to Students

When considering how to make learning goals clear to student the most important thing to consider is how the teacher is presenting those goals to the student, and how the teacher is keeping the student informed.  The teacher must develop clear learning targets and present these to her students in a language they can understand.  The teacher must also communicate to her students a sense of relevancy, urgency, and immediacy.  This means the students must how learning about a certain topic applies to them, why they need to learn about this topic, and why they must learn about now.  In making the learning goals clear the teacher can have a colleague review her goals to double check that the goals are clear.

Criterion C₂: Making Content Comprehensible to Students

Relevancy is the most important aspect of making content comprehensible to students.  Teachers can use a number of strategies to make the content relevant to their students.  One way to increase relevancy and understanding is by helping student to access prior knowledge about the content, so that they can then apply that knowledge to the current aspect of learning.  Teachers can also use pop culture and technology to appeal to their students in a variety of formats that they may be more familiar with.  By varying the teaching style and format the teacher is addressing varying learning styles and multiple intelligences, increasing relevancy and making the content more comprehensible to their students.

Criterion C₃: Encouraging Students to Extend Their Thinking

The best way to encourage students to extend their thinking is to by engaging them in a discussion that they feel is meaningful and authentic.  By developing a classroom that has a comfortable atmosphere where the students are in a low-risk environment where they have the space to test out their ideas.  When the teacher is willing to engage students in a discussion, not a recitation, where there is no right answer and the students are able develop their ideas.

Another way that the teacher can encourage her students to extend their thinking is by providing lots of opportunities for group work.  Group work allows students to explore new ideas in a low-risk environment.  It also exposes students to the differing perspectives of their peers.  By putting the students in heterogeneous groups, and shifting them around often, students will have many opportunities to expand and extend their thinking.

Criterion C₄: Monitoring Students’ Understandings of Content Through a Variety of Means, Providing Feedback to Students to Assist Learning, and Adjusting Learning Activities as the Situation Demands

In order for a teacher to make sure that her students are understanding the content she is teaching it is important for her constantly use formative assessments.  This will allow her to check her students’ comprehension of the material, and determine what she may need to re-teach.   The teacher should also be sure to work within her students’ zone of proximal development to be sure that the tasks she assigns aren’t so easy to be uninteresting, and not so hard that the students are discouraged from completing the tasks.  By scaffolding activities for students the teacher can also help her students to understand what they are supposed to do, and help them to better comprehend the material.  By giving meaningful and timely feedback the teacher can also help her students to focus their learning.

The teacher should also be reflecting on her teaching and be willing to constantly revise her methods.  This reflection will allow her to adjust her teaching activities as the situation demands so that she can make her teaching as accessible as possible to as many students as possible.

Criterion C₅: Using Instructional Time Effectively

The teacher must be diligent in her planning in order to use her instruction time effectively.  She needs be have a good idea of what she needs to accomplish, and prioritize her activities so that she can be sure to get to the activities she most needs to.  The combination of having a back-up plan, and prioritizing the activities will allow the teacher to be prepared and effective in her teaching.  She should also know when to abandon an activity that doesn’t seem to be working and be willing to change direction.  Sometimes this means taking the teachable moment that the students’ present and going with it.

Social Justice SADD Unit Plan

Unit Title: Persuading Students Against Destructive Decisions Grade Levels: 11 & 12

Subject/Topic Areas: Persuasive Writing & Speaking

Key Words: persuasive, writing, speaking, research, SADD

Designed by: Jan K. Time Frame: 4 weeks

School District: Westerville School: Westerville Central High School

Brief Summary of Unit (including curricular context and unit goals):

Students will be learning to communicate persuasively and gather information.  They will be performing at the school’s assembly that takes place before prom in order to help communicate the dangers surrounding destructive decisions.

Cultural Inclusion/Enlarging the Circle: (Who will your curriculum address? How are students’ perspectives incorporated into the unit? What concrete daily actions will occur to make your classroom more inclusive? How are students’ differentiated needs met?

The curriculum will address the students in relation to the community, because drunk driving affects the whole community.  In addition, the students will be gathering information from members of the community.  Students will also be encouraged to bring personal experiences and opinions into their work.  On a day-to-day basis I will be presenting many different forms of material to address differing learning profiles and strategies.  There will also be many different roles and assignments available for students to choose from to reflect their different needs.  Students will be given options to work in different groups or individually, allowing students who need more help to flourish, and those who prefer to work alone to excel.  They will also work with a variety of texts, including letters, essays, novels, visual media, and audio-visual media.  This will encourage multi-modal learning.  There will be also be some choice in the final tasks (letter or essay, writing & visual, speech or skit).

I have structured my unit plan so as to be very clear with my students what is expected of them, reminders of due dates for projects, and class time to work on projects.  The clear expectations and due dates will help them to plan accordingly in order to manage their time.  The time available in class to work on projects will help those students who don’t have the time or resources after school to complete the assignments.

1. 1. Enduring Understandings: These statements define how students will move from knowledge to understanding. Each statement defines a “big idea” of the unit, the concept students will really remember years from now. “An idea is “big” if it helps us make sense of lots of confusing experiences and seemingly isolated facts. It’s like the picture that connects the dots or a simple rule of thumb in a complex field.  Enduring understandings should be 1 or 2 sentences maximum.

Understanding who the target audience is helps to shape and guide communication strategies, and effective writers use varying strategies to generate, format and organize their ideas in order to successfully communicate their ideas allowing them to persuade, entertain, or simply reach their audience.

There are many sources of information and just as many ways to gather information.  Researchers begin with questions that inform the resources they seek and use research to support and expand their own ideas.

1. 2. Essential Questions: These questions are geared to help students take an inquiry approach toward the various learning experiences. Look at the enduring understandings and develop 1-3 essential questions that cover them. There may be one “overarching” essential question or a series of related questions that will cover the full range of the enduring understandings. Good essential questions have the following criteria in common:

• Open-ended questions that resist a simple or single right answer
• Deliberately thought-provoking, counter-intuitive, and/or controversial
• Require students to draw upon content knowledge and personal experience
• Can be revisited throughout the unit to engage students in evolving dialogue and debate
• Lead to other essential questions posed by students.

• What is the best way to engage your peers and provide them with valuable and relevant information?
• What information is relevant to my peers?  Why should they care about this information?  How can I make them care?

1. 3. Standards: What national, state and/or local content standards & indicators are addressed during the unit?

• Reading Applications: Informal, Technical & Persuasive Text
• Writing Process
• Writing Application
• Writing Conventions
• Research
• Communication: Oral & Visual

1. 4. Knowledge – Students will know…

• Persuasive strategies
• Criteria for credible sources
• Research strategies
• Restrictions and regulations for event planning

1. 5. Skills – Students will be able to…

• Write a persuasive text.
• Read between the lines to understand and analyze an author’s bias and point of view.
• Speak passionately and persuasively about a topic.
• Conduct interviews to gather information.
• Gather information about a topic from credible sources.
• Plan and organize an event.

1. 6. Assessment Evidence: To what extent do the assessments provide fair, valid, reliable and sufficient measures of the desired results?

• Are students asked to exhibit their understanding through authentic performance tasks?
• Are appropriate criterion-based scoring tools used to evaluate student products and performances?
• Are a variety of appropriate assessment formats used to provide additional evidence of learning?
• Are the assessments used as feedback for students and teachers, as well as for evaluation?
• Are students encouraged to self-assess?

I will have checkpoints throughout the unit to determine where students are in their work, as well as to determine if they understand the concepts thus far in the unit.  This will serve as a formative assessment that will allow me to make adjustments throughout the unit in order to better guide my students.  One of the challenges will be that there is a set deadline for the end of the unit, because of the assembly.

Students will be given the opportunity to reflect on their research and learning through their book journals, where they will synthesize their research, ideas presented in their book, and views into a cohesive opinion.  They will be given the opportunity to revise and change this opinion during the book groups when they write chat.  They will self-assessing their work when they peer-edit and when they present their speech or skit to the class.

Students will have rough drafts of their tasks due before the final assembly, where the majority of feedback from me, their peers, and themselves will come, giving them ample time to adjust and polish their final piece.  A portion of their grade will be based on these assessments and on the revision that results from them.

The culminating task for the class will be to perform at a SADD type assembly for Prom.  The students will have an opportunity to present their piece for the assembly before the final performance at the assembly.  This will be when the majority of the grading on their final task takes place in order to reduce the stress of speaking in front of a large group of their peers.  The tasks for the final assembly will include:

• gathering information and synthesizing it into understandable and relevant chunks for the rest of the school,
• outlining and/or writing speeches to present during the school assembly,
• creating a presentation or skit to convey information and persuade their peers not to make destructive decisions (specifically during Prom).

1. 7. Learning Activities: To what extend is the learning plan effective and engaging? Consider the following when defining the learning activities. Will the students:

• know where they’re going (the learning goals), why the material is important (reason for learning the content) and what is required of them (unit goal, performance requirements, and evaluation criteria?
• be hooked — engaged in digging into the big ideas (e.g. through inquiry, research, problem solving, and experimentation)?
• have adequate opportunities to explore and experience big ideas and receive instruction to equip them for the required performances?
• have sufficient opportunities to rethink, rehearse, revise, and refine their work based upon timely feedback?
• have an opportunity to evaluate their work reflect on their learning, and set goals?”

Learning activities for students (in mostly chronological order) will include:

M: Day 1:

-       overview of unit explaining goals

-       Examine previous statistics and speeches that have to do with drunk driving, drug/alcohol abuse, and/or destructive decisions on SADD website

-       Brainstorm what could fall under the category of “Destructive Decision”

-       Assign Book Groups choosing from the following novels:

• Inexcusable by Chris Lynch
• Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson
• The Absolute True Life Story of a Part-Time Indian Sherman Alexie
• Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

-       HW: read first third of book by Day 6 and complete Book Journal for discussion use

T:Day 2:

-       Lecture on criteria for credible research sources and research strategies

-       Brainstorming for search terms relating to drunk driving, drug/alcohol abuse, and/or destructive decisions

-       Assign research groups

-       Exit slip on lecture strategies

W:Day 3:

-       Explain persuasive paper assignment and requirements

• Must include a text and a visual display (cartoon, graph, etc)
• Visual Display will be posted in the school the week before Prom (Day 16)

-       Lab day to conduct preliminary research on drunk driving, drug/alcohol abuse, and/or destructive decisions

R:Day 4:

-       Discuss interviewing strategies

-       Develop interview questions

-       Exit slip on interview strategies

F:Day 5:

-       Give groups list of interview contacts (members of the community and school, possibly some contacted through the SADD website)

-       Conduct practice interviews and interview note taking within the group

• Notes collected at end of class

-       HW: Make contact with interview candidates & set up interview time before Day 11.  May conduct actual interview individually or in pairs.  Reminder that notes must be taken during interview.

M:Day 6:

-       Book Group discussion

• Write-chat on book journals
• Answer discussion questions that were posed in journals by peers

-       Any extra time to read ahead in book

-       HW: read second third of book by Day 10

T:Day 7:

-       Lecture discussing persuasive strategies and organization in writing

-       Read and discuss as a class some examples of persuasive writing

• Newspaper editorials
• “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift
• “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine

-       Exit slip on persuasive strategies

W:Day 8:

-       Brainstorm in research groups for persuasive topics relating to drunk driving, drug/alcohol abuse, or destructive decisions

-       Outline individually a persuasive essay or letter using discussed strategies

• Include possible sources from preliminary research

R:Day 9:

-       Draft Persuasive Essay/Letter in writing lab

-       HW: Complete rough draft by Day 11

F:Day 10:

-       Book Group discussion

• Write-chat on book journals
• Answer discussion questions that were posed in journals by peers

-       Use any extra time to work on Rough Draft

-       HW: read final third of book by Day 19

-       Reminder: Interviews should be completed by Day 11.  Must take notes during the interview.

M:Day 11:

-       Meet with research group to compile information from interviews.  Pose some new questions that were raised in the interview, or that group has.

• Compiled list and questions will be collected at end of class.  Individual/pair notes from the interview will also be collected.

-       Peer revision of Persuasive Rough Draft

-       HW: Final Draft due Day 14

T:Day 12:

-       Lab to conduct focused follow-up research on interviews (list handed back, with possible feedback or additional questions)

-       Use any free time to revise persuasive essay/letter

W:Day 13:

-       Lecture on Persuasive speaking strategies, organization, and outlining

-       Watch and discuss some examples of persuasive speeches

• JFK Inaugural Address
• “I Have a Dream” MLK Jr.

-       Exit slip on persuasive speaking strategies

R:Day 14:

-       Give requirements for persuasive speech/skit

• Full and Speaking Outline
• 4-6 min
• Uses sources from research

-       Fully outline persuasive speech/skit individually(for speech) or in groups of 2-4 (for skit)

-       Create speaking/skit outline/note cards

-       HW: finish speaking/skit outline/note cards for Day 15

F:Day 15:

-       Rehearse and peer-critique speech/skit with a partner/another skit group (rotate to rehearse 3x each)

-       Assign speech/skit days (Days 16 &17)

• Student will turn in full and speaking outline, and give prepared speech
• Assign partnered students to go on different days

-       HW: practice speech at home.

-       Teacher: put up Visual Displays for Day 16

M:Day 16:

-       Explain to class that they will be casting a secret ballot after everyone has gone, and the top three speakers/skits will give their speech at the Prom Assembly

• They should take notes and complete peer assessment worksheet during the speeches/skits (it will be collected at the end of each class period)

-       Speeches/Skits

T:Day 17:

-       Speeches/Skits

W:Day 18:

-       Any overflow speeches

-       Cast secret ballot

-       General critique and overview of assembly

R:Day 19:

-       Book Group discussion

• Write-chat on book journals
• Answer discussion questions that were posed in journals by peers

-       Use any extra time to rehearse or watch top three speakers/skits

F:Day 20:

-       Assembly prep & Assembly

8. Resources: List the resources needed. These may be linked to websites, handouts, etc.

• Texts
• Newspaper editorials
• “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift
• “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine
• Speeches
• JFK Inaugural Address
• “I Have a Dream” MLK Jr.
• Novels
• Inexcusable by Chris Lynch
• Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson
• The Absolute True Life Story of a Part-Time Indian Sherman Alexie
• Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
• contacts of interview candidates
• SADD website (http://www.sadd.org/)

Domain A Exhibits: Examples of Organizing Content Knowledge for Student Learning

In my Class profile of Writers I examined aspects of my focus class in order to gauge what their interests were so that I would be able to make any content I taught relevant to them.  In line with criterion A₁ I was able to learn about the students’ prior knowledge so that I could then make the content of my lessons fit with what they were already familiar with.

Answering the question of “Why do we need to learn/do this?” is something that and understanding of criterion A₂ seeks to answer.   In my Multi-Day Teach Autumn quarter I helped students to understand the relevancy of learning to provide good description by comparing my own desire to read with their desire to read.  I asked the class if they liked to read really boring pieces of literature, and they predictably chorused “No.”  I was then able to relate to them by reminding them that Mrs. Cornelius and I have to read their papers, and we like reading boring work just as much as they do.  I also pointed out to the class that if they have trouble meeting word counts that teachers require, then the ability to write descriptive phrases and provide extended specific examples would help them to meet that goal.

Demonstrating criterion A₃ I used the knowledge of their prior knowledge to help them make connection between what they already knew, what I was teaching them, and what they were going to be learning in the future.  One of the ways I gathered information for my Class Profile of Writers was by obtaining a writing sample.  With these samples of student work I was able to assess what knowledge students already had and determine what specific areas they still needed work on.  When I was developing my lesson plan for my Multi-Day Teach Autumn quarter, I was aware of my students’ prior knowledge, and was able to tap into what they already knew about writing and help them to improve their craft.

One of the most difficult things for a teacher in this day and age can be finding materials that are both appropriate and relevant to students, as criterion A₄ suggests.  It can be hard to find materials that students will be able to relate to, but that retain some way to connect to academic content.  In my Multi-Day Teach Autumn quarter my lesson focused on tone words, and how they can be used to create parody.  At the time of my lesson, the unit that class was working in had a focus on gender roles.  So, in my search for a relevant text for the students to show them an example of parody that addressed and critiqued gender roles, I found a short movie remix of Twilight and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Twilight is part of pop culture, and from listening to my students’ casual conversations I knew that they had some familiarity with it, even if they didn’t like the book or film.  The result was that they were able to make connections to and be excited about the movie remix, “Buffy vs. Edward,” and I was able to guide them toward thinking more deeply about a subject that many of them felt they already possessed some expert knowledge on and therefore had an authority to contribute.

After teaching my students how tone words could be used to enhance their writing and create an effective parody I instructed them to write a parody of there own, evaluating them in a way that was explicitly aligned with the goals of the lesson as criterion A₅ requires.  I allowed the students to choose the base text for their parody, encouraging them to use a text we read in class that I provided a modal parody for, or to choose there own base text, such as a song or poem, that appealed to them personally.  This method made the assessment more authentic for the students because it allowed them to take more ownership of their writing by writing about a topic, or in a genre, that they cared about.

Domain A Artifact: Organizing Content Knowledge for Student Learning

In order for students to learn and understand the content knowledge that teachers are trying to impart, it is imperative that the teacher arranges and organizes the material so that it will be relevant to the student.  The primary goal here is to make the content relevant and interesting to the students first so that they’ll become engaged in the lesson, and then the teacher can bring the lesson back around to technical terminology and the source text to supplement the content.

Criterion A₁ : Becoming familiar with relevant aspects of students’ background knowledge and experience.

Becoming familiar with students’ background knowledge and experience is important because it allows the teacher to tailor her instruction to the fit with what the students are already familiar with.  By knowing what students are already familiar with, the teacher can tap into the students’ prior knowledge and make connections to knowledge they already have in order to help the students’ process and learn new concepts and ideas.

Criterion A₂: Articulating clear learning goals for the lesson that are appropriate to the students.

One of the questions that is heard with great frequency, and often frustration on the teacher’s part, is “When am I ever going to need to know this?”  One way to counter this question is to have clear learning goals that are communicated to the students.  If the teacher has a clear idea of what she is teaching her students and why, then she can communicate that reasoning to her students and being to deflect this difficult question.  If the learning goals can be communicated with clarity and they bear some relevance to the students, then the students are more likely to be interested in the content and willing to engage in the lesson.

Criterion A₃: Demonstrating an understanding of the connections between the content that was learned previously, the current content, and the content that remains to learned in the future.

By making connections to students’ prior knowledge the teacher can enhance learning of the content for the current lesson.  When a teacher works within the zone of proximal development she can drawn on knowledge that the student crialready has, link it to the content of the current lesson, and then give a projection and clues as to how the knowledge learned in the current lesson will apply to future lessons and help students as they move forward in their growth as intellectuals.

Criterion A₄: Creating or selecting teaching materials, learning activities, and instructional materials or other resources that are appropriate to the students that are aligned with the goals of the lesson.

When determining whether or not materials and activities are appropriate to the students and aligned with the lesson there are a few things the teacher must take into account.  First, the teacher must determine if the materials she chooses will appeal to the students interests in order for them to engage with and form a greater understanding of the content.  Second, the teacher must determine what is age-appropriate for her students in part by knowing her students background.  Third, the teacher must determine if the materials she has chosen are the best choice to help convey the content of the lesson.  And finally, the teacher would be wise to have alternative materials and activities arranged for students for whom the materials and activities she has chosen are not appropriate.

Criterion A₅: Creating or selecting evaluation strategies that are appropriate for the students and that are aligned with the goals of the lesson.

The main goal is choose evaluation strategies that are authentic.  The authenticity of the evaluation will help students apply the concepts of the lesson in a manner that will engage all of the knowledge they’ve acquired.  In addition to having authentic assessments, it is important that the students are being evaluated on concepts that directly relate to the learning goals of the lesson.  Meaning, if the concept wasn’t covered explicitly in the lesson, then the teacher should not be asking her students to complete a task on the concept.  Student should not be doing anything wholly new when they are being evaluated.

 

Exhibits for Domain B

Domain B Exhibits: Examples of Creating an Environment for Student Learning

My classroom management plan includes lots of examples of procedures I will be following in order to create a positive environment for student learning.  To begin with, in my classroom management plan I have included a problem solving form.  One way to be confident that students feel they are being treated fairly is to take their input into account when coming up with consequences.  On this form is a space for the student write down what he believes he can do to help him to follow a rule, as well as a space for him to make suggestions for what I, as the teacher, as well as the other students can do to help him to better follow the rule in the future.  I believe this method of discipline promotes fairness, addressing criterion B­­₁.

I also address in my classroom management plan how I will be keeping track of both good and bad behaviors.  This, in conjunction with the aforementioned problem solving form, will allow me to determine punishments that are consistent with the misbehaviors while ensuring that they will be effective to stop the misbehaviors, meeting criterion B₄.

Another way for students to feel as though they are being treated fairly it’s important to establish a rapport with them.  I will be establishing rapport with my student by journaling at the start of every class.  At the beginning of the year I will be giving the students prompts focusing around themselves, and not only do I expect them to write, I plan on responding to prompts myself as well those first few weeks, and sharing my responses with the class.  This way not only will I be getting to know my students, but they will also be getting to know me.  As the year progresses the journals will change in function, offering students a place to write about what is important to them, and also as a place for them to organize their thoughts before a class discussion.  I will continue to learn about my students as the year goes on through these journals.  By continually learning about my students and developing a rapport with them, I will be meeting criterion B₂.

Another thing I discuss in my classroom management plan is how to address cultural diversity by being sure to keep lines of communication open.  I will be starting off the year by sending a letter home to the parents/guardians of my students, which will encourage them to not hesitate in contacting me if they have concerns about my class or their student.  In addition to contacting parents I will be getting to know my students through journaling.  In building a rapport with my students I hope they will feel safe coming to me if they have a concern regarding the class.  This approach works for all sorts of situations.  If an open dialogue is maintained, and students are able to express themselves, then I will be more likely to understand them and be better able to assess their needs and concerns.  I will be able to communicate expectations to each student that will challenge him based on his ability and needs, addressing criterion B₃.

The first rule I discuss in my classroom management plan is “Be respectful to other people and their belongings.”  It will be the number one rule in my classroom because without respect the classroom cannot function in a way that is beneficial to the students or to me.  This rule covers aspects of respect such as remaining seated, listening attentively, and not interrupting while others are speaking, as well as more blatant aspects of disrespect, such as physical and verbal abuse or fighting.  This rule will be the number one way for me to meet criterion B₅ and make my classroom safe for my students so they have a positive environment that is conducive to learning.

Narrative on Domain B – Revised

Domain B: Creating an Environment for Student Learning

There are a variety of important qualities that must be present in a classroom in order for it to be an effective place for students to learn.  If students do not feel safe and comfortable in the physical environment in which they are learning, then they will have a difficult time comprehending the material that you are trying to explain to them.  In order to create this positive environment for students it is important to be as open with communication as possible in order to develop rapport with students so that they feel as though the teacher is being both consistent and fair.

Criterion B₁ : Creating a Climate That Promotes Fairness

First it is important to clarify what is meant by fairness.  If students are to feel as though they should be respectful of the teacher and the classroom, they need to feel as though they are being treated fairly.  This does not necessarily mean that the same consequence will be applied without further thought to each student in a situation, but it does mean that the consequence will fit the situation and the student(s) within the context of the situation.  Students should not have unnecessary consequences for actions that are a one-time offense, nor should a student continue to receive the same consequence for an action committed multiple times, if that consequence clearly isn’t having an effect.

Criterion B₂: Establishing and Maintaining Rapport with Students

First it is important to clarify what is meant by rapport.  Rapport is about building a relationship based on mutual trust and understanding.  An important aspect of building rapport with students is letting the students feel as though they can get to know the teacher.  If they feel they know about the teacher as a person, then they will be more likely to feel as though the teacher will understand them on a personal level, and will be more willing to approach her about problems and difficulties that they are experiencing.  It is also very important for the teacher to show the students that she trusts them.  This will, to some extent, keep them from feeling that they need to act out to get attention because the teacher is giving them positive attention by openly displaying trust in them.

Criterion B₃: Communicating Challenging Learning Expectations to Each Student

First it is important to clarify what challenging learning expectations means.  No two students are likely to have exactly the same expectations because what is challenging for one student may not be challenging for another.  In order for all of our students to achieve the highest level of success possible they need to have their needs individualized to some extent.  A teacher needs to be aware that her students are all different, and be willing to adjust her lesson planning accordingly.

Criterion B₄: Establishing and Maintaining Consistent Standards of Classroom Behavior

First it is important to clarify what is meant by consistent.  A consequence must be consistent and reasonable for the situation at hand, but not necessarily consistent from student to student.   This criterion ties in very closely with B₁, as it regards fairness, and consistency is often an aspect of what children and adolescents perceive as fairness.  It is very important in this sense then that the consequence fits the crime, or that previous actions help to build up credit.

Criterion B₅: Making the Physical Environment as Safe and as Conducive as Possible

First it is important to clarify what is meant by safe.  It is important to differentiation between safe and comfortable.  Students who feel safe are more likely to express their opinions in a class discussion, whereas students who are comfortable may not feel the need to consider an opinion other than their own.  It is important for students to feel safe by maintaining a blanket rule regarding respect.  Respect for every person in the classroom will allow for an atmosphere conducive to tackling difficult questions that require critical thinking and analysis.  This respect can be ensured by the teacher being willing to deviate from her lesson plan if a situation regarding respect or intolerance comes up.  School is a place of indoctrination for students, and it can be a place where they can learn to be accepting of all viewpoints if the teacher is willing to address these issues in her classroom.

PRAXIS Domain B: Creating and Environment for Student Learning

There are a variety of important qualities that must be present in a classroom in order for it to be an effective place for students to learn.  If students do not feel safe and comfortable in the physical environment in which they are learning, then they will have a difficult time comprehending the material that you are trying to explain to them.  In order to create this positive environment for students it is important to be as open with your communication as possible in order to develop rapport with your students so that they feel you are being both consistent and fair in your treatment of them.

Criterion B₁ : Creating a Climate That Promotes Fairness

First it is important to clarify what is meant by fairness.  If students are to feel as though they should be respectful of you and your classroom, they need to feel as though they are being treated fairly.  This does not necessarily mean that the same consequence will be applied without further thought to each student in a situation, but it does mean that the consequence will fit the situation and the student(s) within the context of the situation.  Students should not have unnecessary consequences for actions that are a one-time offense, nor should a student continue to receive the same consequence for an action committed multiple times, if that consequence clearly isn’t having an effect.

One way to be confident that your students feel they are being treated fairly is to take their input into account when coming up with consequences.  In my classroom management plan I have included a problem solving form.  On this form is a space for the student write down what he believes he can do to help him to follow a rule, as well as a space for him to make suggestions for what I, as the teacher, as well as the other students can do to help him to better follow the rule in the future.

Criterion B₂: Establishing and Maintaining Rapport with Students

First it is important to clarify what is meant by rapport.  Rapport is about building a relationship based on mutual trust and understanding.  An important aspect of building rapport with students is letting the students feel as though they can get to know you.  If they feel they know about you as a person, then they will be more likely to feel as though you’ll understand them on a personal level, and will be more willing to approach you above problems and difficulties that they are experiencing.  It is also very important to show the students that you trust them to some extent.  This will, to some extent, keep them from feeling that they need to act out to get your attention because you are giving them positive attention by openly displaying your trust in them.

One of first ways I will begin to establish rapport with my students is by allowing them to choose their own seats.  I believe that this action is one that students appreciate, because it conveys that you trust them enough to let them choose where they will sit and next to whom.  Adolescents appreciate that you trust them to choose responsibly, and will be insulted if you give off the impression that you are treating them like children and trusting them with responsibility is one of the easiest ways to avoid this impression.

Another way I will be establishing rapport with my student is by journaling at the start of every class.  At the beginning of the year I will be giving the students prompts focusing around themselves, and not only do I expect them to write, I plan on responding to prompts myself as well those first few weeks, and sharing my responses with the class.  This way not only will I be getting to know my students, but they will also be getting to know me.  I will continue to learn about my students as the year goes on throughout these journals.

Criterion B₃: Communicating Challenging Learning Expectations to Each Student

First it is important to clarify what challenging learning expectations means.  No two students are likely to have exactly the same expectations because what is challenging for one student may not be challenging for another.  In order for all of our students to achieve the highest level of success possible they need to have their needs individualized to some extent.  As teachers, we need to be aware that our students are all different, and be willing to adjust our lesson planning accordingly.

In my classroom management plan I discuss how to address cultural diversity by being sure to keep lines of communication open.  This approach works for all sorts of situations.  If an open dialogue is maintained, and students are able to express themselves, then I will be more likely to understand them and be better able to assess their needs and concerns.  I will be able to communicate expectations to each student that will challenge him based on his ability and needs.

Criterion B₄: Establishing and Maintaining Consistent Standards of Classroom Behavior

First it is important to clarify what is meant by consistent.  A punishment must be consistent and reasonable for the situation at hand, but not necessarily consistent from student to student.   This criterion ties in very closely with B₁, as it regards fairness, and consistency is often an aspect of what children and adolescents perceive as fairness.  It is very important in this sense then that the punishment fits the crime, or that previous actions help to build up credit.

In my classroom management plan I discuss how I will be keeping track of both good and bad behaviors.  This, in conjunction with the aforementioned problem solving form, will allow me to determine punishments that are consistent with the misbehaviors while ensuring that they will be effective to stop the misbehaviors.

Criterion B₅: Making the Physical Environment as Safe and as Conducive as Possible

First it is important to clarify what is meant by .  It is important to differentiation between safe and comfortable.  Students who feel safe are more likely to express their opinions in a class discussion, whereas students who are comfortable may not feel the need to consider an opinion other than their own.  It is important for students to feel safe but maintaining a blanket rule regarding respect.  Respect for every person in the classroom will allow for an atmosphere conducive to tackling difficult questions that require critical thinking and analysis.

The first rule I discuss in my classroom management plan is “Be respectful to other people and their belongings.”  It will be the number one rule in my classroom because without respect the classroom cannot function in a way that is beneficial to the students or to me.  This rule covers aspects of respect such as remaining seated, listening attentively, and not interrupting while others are speaking, as well as more blatant aspects of disrespect, such as physical and verbal abuse or fighting.