Name__Amy McCutchen_________________

Learning Community Baseline Reflection

As a part of beginning the UW-L Learning Community experience, it is important for you to establish a baseline of your knowledge and practices regarding a variety of topics. Write a brief narrative or list for each topic, to show what you know. Prior knowledge: What do I know? Application: How do I use this topic in my workplace? Growth: What have I learned? What am I doing? (2nd-4th semesters only)

Learning in Community
Community Building/Stages of Community
Prior knowledge: Communities go through four stages: pseudocommunity, chaos, emptiness, and community. Many communities never become true communities. Application:

Growth:

Emotional and Social Learning

Prior knowledge: I know its important to meet my students emotional and social needs if they are going to learn in my classroom. Students need to feel safe, respected, and valued before they will learn. Application:

Growth:

Conflict Resolution
Prior knowledge: Conflicts are bound to happen between students, between teachers, and between teachers and students. Its important to practice good conflict resolution skills to ensure relationships arent damaged by conflict. Application:

Growth:

Values
Prior knowledge: Values are oftentimes reflected in the way we teach. We need to be aware of this, and realize that our students values may not always align with our own. Application:

Growth:

Compass Points/True Colors/Six Hats

Prior knowledge: I have no prior knowledge. Application:

Growth:

Best Practice Pedagogy

Differentiation/R.T.I (Response to Intervention)
Prior knowledge: Im currently on the RTI committee at my school and weve worked to establish a structured study hall system for students who need additional help. Weve also allowed more freedom and rewards for students who receive good grades and dont need additional help in any of their classes. Application:

Growth:

Classroom Management/PBIS
Prior knowledge: I know PBIS stands for Positive Behavior Intervention System. There is a PBIS committee in place at my school, but I dont know that its overall supported by administration and staff. PBIS works to motivate students to act respectfully, responsibly, and safe. Application:

Growth:

Brain Research/Multiple Intelligences

Prior knowledge: I know students learn differently, and its important to know how the students in your classroom learn best before you begin teaching. Some ways people learn: visually, auditory, action, etc..

Application:

Growth:

Constructivism/Universal Instruction
Prior knowledge: Constructivism is based in learning experiences in the classroom. Constructivist teachers help students learn how to learn by providing them with broad ideas that students can delve into and explore the intricacies. Application:

Growth:

Universal Instruction
Prior knowledge: Universal Instruction is providing instruction that meets the needs of all students in your classroom. Application:

Growth:

Metacognition/Dialogue
Prior knowledge: I think metacognition is knowing about how students/people learn, and, in particular, knowing how to apply that to classroom instruction.

Application:

Growth:

Democracy, Diversity, and Social Justice

Bullying
Prior knowledge: Bullying is a major issue in schools and society right now. Ive personally taught about cyberbullying in my Computer Applications classroom. Ive helped students learn what it is, what they can do if they are being cyberbullied, and ways to prevent it. Application:

Growth:

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Prior knowledge: I know its important to acknowledge cultural differences in the classroom, but I have had no training in this area and I dont know much about it. Application:

Growth:

Diversity Issues (race, class, and gender)

Prior knowledge: I havent dealt with many race or class diversity issues at Holmen High School. I know males and females think and learn differently. Stereotypically, males enjoy competition and females do not, but I dont think that is always true. Application:

Growth:

Diversity Issues (religious, linguistic, and cultural)

Prior knowledge: I know there are different beliefs, cultures, and languages we need to be aware of in the classroom environment, but I dont have much experience in this area. I have worked with some ESL and Hmong students at my time at Holmen High School. Application:

Growth:

Educational Research
Action Research
Prior knowledge: Action research is carrying out experiments, collecting data, and analyzing the outcome in the classroom setting. Application:

Growth:

APA
Prior knowledge: APA is a format used in Language Arts and college classrooms in which the author of a paper needs to provide a Bibliography/Works Cited page at the end of a paper and site the sources and authors referenced in the paper.

Application:

Growth:

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Prior knowledge: I think this is the board that oversees UWL other universities, but Im not sure. Application:

Growth:

Data Collection in the Workplace

Prior knowledge: My colleagues and I have worked to collect data in our classrooms by tracking answers to test questions and analyzing short daily assessments. We compare with one another to see what parts of our lessons worked and which parts did not. We also try to figure out which students need more support. Application:

Growth:

Curriculum Development and Assessment

Assessment for Learning/Assessment of Learning
Prior knowledge: I think Assessment for Learning is when a teacher checks to see if their lesson/delivery was successful, and Assessment of Learning is checking to see if students truly learned the material. Application:

Growth:

Benchmarking/Progress Monitoring/Self Assessment

Prior knowledge: Self Assessment and Progress Monitoring are used for looking at yourself to see that you are meeting your own goals and objectives. We all are working to improve something in our classroom, and its important to continually reflect on our progress toward meeting that goal. Application:

Growth:

Unit Design
Prior knowledge: Im not sure what Unit Design means in this context. Im guessing it may have something to do with the pre-assessment, instruction, check for understanding, practice, assessment cycle. Application:

Growth:

Common Core Standards

Prior knowledge: Common Core Standards ensures that students throughout the state at each grade level are learning the same things and are meeting the same standards. Application:

Growth:

Teacher Effectiveness Model

Prior knowledge: The Teacher Effectiveness Model is a breakdown of how educators will be evaluated throughout the state. This should make teacher evaluation more fair and uniform. Application:

Growth:

Evaluation, Grading, and Standards Based Report Cards

Prior knowledge: Standards Based Report Cards are report cards that dont just show a single letter grade for a class, but instead show if the student met the individual objectives/standards in a class or unit. This gives the student and his/her parents more constructive feedback and can help them pinpoint the exact areas that a student may need more work. Application:

Growth:

Standards: Wisconsin 10 Teaching Standards

Prior knowledge: I know there are ten teaching standards that teachers need to meet in order to be a quality educator. This was apparent when writing my first PDP. Application:

Growth:

Technology in Education
Technology Individual Application
Prior knowledge: I individually use a lot of technology on a daily basis at school and in my personal life. Being a business teacher, I rely on technology for all my lessons and for presenting material to my students. Application:

Growth:

Technology Classroom Application

Prior knowledge: My students use technology on a daily basis. They use computers, the SMARTboard, numerous Web 2.0 sites, and they soon will be using iPads. Application:

Growth:

D2L
Prior knowledge: I feel comfortable with D2L as Ive used Blackboard (a very similar program) in the past. Application:

Growth:

Teacher Leadership
Facilitation
Prior knowledge: Facilitation is leading and helping others, most likely fellow teachers, to reach a common goal.

Application:

Growth:

Reflective Practice/Metacognition Prior knowledge: Reflective practice is continually thinking about what youve taught, what you did well, and what you could work on in the future. Its important to continually reflect, as there is always room for improvement. Application:

Growth:

Professional Learning Community (PLC)

Prior knowledge: PLCs are groups of people (usually assigned to the group) working together to meet a common goal. The communitys main goal should always be focused on improving student learning. Im part of the Business/Marketing/FACE PLC at my school and now Im a part of the UWL ME-PD Learning Community. Application:

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