Teaching Work Sample: 8.

Reflection, Self-Evaluation and Professional Development Whole Class: A: During my showcase lesson I felt as though I did quite a few things that helped the students, but I also know that I could have done more to help students. To begin, the positive side of things. Most of these students enjoy engaging during a lesson. They are willing to ask questions and answer questions. So, by formatting my lesson around a lecture, this helped students become active in the lesson. Also, I provided multiple visuals on the PowerPoint that gave students another example of what they were learning. This included a picture of what Napoleons blockade could have looked like when seen on a map and the conditions Napoleons army went through during Russias winter. I also felt like I asked engaging questions. Questions that were bother answerable and challenging to students. Lastly, I made things appealing to students. I used many modern examples that students would understand and I related the content to other content that I knew they had learned about, such as comparing Napoleons campaign in Russia to Hitlers own campaign in Russia. B: On the opposite side of things, I felt as though I could have challenged the students more. Made them think about the questions I asked them or have them connect the material with their own modern examples. This would have help students develop their critical thinking skills. Also, I could have worded things on my PowerPoint more effectively. Whether this is shortening certain sections or adding more clarity, both could be done to help students. In my opinion, if I could improve my teaching by doing both of these things then I could help students grasp the information to a much higher degree. Individual Students: 9 (Most Successful): Two of the possible reasons that this student was able to perform so well could just be due to the student, himself. This student was chosen for his high performing abilities. It was expected

that he would perform well on all assessments. He may be able to grasp the information quicker and more efficiently. Also, this student is extremely active in the classroom. It is obvious that he not only enjoyed the content, but was also interested in learning beyond the confines of the lecture. 19 (Least Successful): This student was the average performer, but performed, overall, lower than the other two selected students. There are three specific topics that I would like to touch on with this particular student. One, this student may not learn effectively during this kind of lesson. There was a great deal of information provided in a short amount of time and this student may be able to perform better if the information was spread out a little more. Two, she may not have taken notes or effective notes. Taking notes, at all levels, is important to student learning and while I verbally told the students that note taking was expected that does not mean that all students were willing to do so. Lastly, and, in my opinion, the most logical explanation for her lacking performance, would be that this student was quite sick during this lesson. She had a few coughing fits and was not her normal upbeat, chipper self; though, she was still energetic. Addition to reflection 11/21/13: The last portion of this reflection proved to be true and could definitely be indicative of what made her perform poorly. I found out that this student was diagnosed with a minor case of Pneumonia. Obviously, this illness is debilitating and could have affected her ability to perform in the classroom. 14 (Average Performer): Overall, this student performed about average when considering her overall scores, and was the middle performer out of the three chosen. She was below average during the preassessment and above average during the post assessment. This could be due to several things. One, she could avoid speaking in class due to, perhaps, not wanting to be wrong when giving an answer. This trait is common amongst students at all levels and this would not surprise me even though most students at this age enjoy talking. Secondly, her large increase in performance could be due to the information

being presented in a way that she enjoys more or forces her to take the initiative. It was lecture based so it meant she had to pay attention, and take notes which could help her grasp the information to a much higher degree. Section 3: Reflection on Additional Lessons Lesson Reflection 2: Prior to the lesson, I decided to frame the lesson using, predominantly, lecture. This was due to the amount of time, after the fact, that I would have to work with the students on other activities. Using a lecture allowed me to address a wide range of content and immediately answer questions that students may have had. During the lesson, I chose to focus on asking questions and, at times, let the lecture speak for itself. This was to ensure that the students understood the content. I did not want them to merely write down notes; I wanted the students to have a firm grasp on what they were learning. Doing this allowed the students, and myself, to explore the content to a greater extent. Throughout this lesson, the students showed their interest by asking a great deal of questions and by answering any questions I had with them. I felt like, based on the way I taught the content, I was able to get the students interested in what they were learning. In my opinion, it also helped that I was able to make references to more modern events that the students were able to understand more than what they were currently learning. After the lesson was complete, it did not appear as though the students were uninterested or that they lacked the proper familiarity with the content. My cooperating teacher went over some of the material the next day and the students showed the ability to recall most, if not all, of the content that we had gone over during my lesson. I believe this was due to the mixture of lecture notes and questions presented to the students that allowed the content to be understood. I believe this was also helped by the fact that both classes that I taught this lesson to left off at the same spot. There was no variance in the amount of content covered, or time spent, on this lesson.

Lastly, during this particular lesson, I chose to walk around the room at certain points. This did make me feel as though the students were less inclined to act out or talk during my lecture. However, there were still students who chose to talk, but this was remedied by walking closer to these students. Doing this often made the students appear uncomfortable, but there was a case where this technique did not work and a verbal reprimand had to be given. This showed me that, at times, certain techniques will be more effective than others. Lesson Reflection 3: This lesson was focused around studying and, for the students, having a friendly competition. With an upcoming test, my cooperating teacher told me that a study lesson would be great for the students. So, I made a Jeopardy game for the students to participate in. It was a group activity and all of the students seemed to enjoy the game. I chose to do this form of studying because it would allow all of the students to participate and I know that I enjoyed it when I was their age. During the lesson, I made some decisions to change the point allotments given when answering some of the questions correctly. This was due to the questions being worded poorly by me. So, I felt it was necessary to do so. During this lesson, I do not think there was ever a time where I felt that the students were uninterested/did not wish to participate. This could be due to the way I presented the Jeopardy game. It was made using PowerPoint, so students could see the topics they could choose from and the questions they had to answer. I set up the game so that each group got to answer 5 questions, if they missed the question then other groups got to answer and that is when things could get a little hectic. However, students would listen to me when I asked them to quiet down. At some points I had to raise my voice, but there was never a time in which I felt like the students were unwilling to listen to me. Overall, the students acted as I expected them to. Excited, but still willing to listen to what I had to say. I would use a similar method, in the future, because it proved to effective.

While, at some points, the students felt like I was unfair due to the groups I called on to answer questions, I felt like I was fair to the students. I called upon groups I believed raised their hands first, and whether or not I was right or wrong, I chose groups based upon what I saw and not what the students were telling me. Doing this ensured that all students got the same consideration in this regard. Both classes that I did this activity with were able to use the entirety of the class effectively. All questions were asked and my cooperating teacher and I were able to answer any lingering questions, test related, afterward. Overall, I felt that this time of lesson was well suited for these students. They enjoy participating and they enjoy group activities. It was the perfect study game to use with these students. However, in the future, I would definitely need to make sure that I double check the questions that students would have to answer so that there would not be any mix-ups when answering in class. Doing so would help the flow of the game and prevent any confusion. Section 4: Reflection for Professional Development Development Goals o My first goal would be to come up with other ways to assess student achievement. While I do think that is something that comes with extended teaching, it is something I definitely need to do. There are other areas that students need to be assessed on that are not always covered in quizzes, tests, and essays. Students, especially now that Common Core is being implemented, need to be able to be assessed on their ability to do a wide range of things that will make them ready for college level courses. It is becoming increasingly more important for their success. I feel this evident by the lack of skills that students have entering college. In several of my college level classes, students were unable to distinguish between a primary and secondary source, were unable to

site sources, and did not know that Wikipedia should not be used as a source of information. These skills may seem basic to many of us now, but some students are going to college without them. o My second goal is to come up with ways in which to challenge students. I feel that this is difficult to do. This is difficult due to the wide range of students that will be in the classroom. Challenging the class should not be too difficult, but challenging individual students is what I definitely scratch my head at. What some students may find easy, another may find difficult and vice versa. So, coming up with ways to challenge all students, less difficult, and challenging individual students, more difficult, over the course of the year is something I definitely need and want to work on. I think that as I get more experience under my belt, this is something that will become second nature. I will be able to come up with various ways, in a single lesson, to do so. Steps to Take: o Obviously, I think practice is definitely a key to success. Without practice, I will not be comfortable using different forms of assessments or challenging students. It is definitely something that has to be worked on. I am not going to just magically become amazing at doing these things; I have to work at doing them and doing them well. I have to be willing to fail at some of these things or else I will not learn from what I am doing right or wrong. Failure is often the best indicator of what is not working, and I feel that the same thing remains true in this case. o Secondly, I feel like researching different assessments and activities would be a great way to discover new ways to assess and challenge students. The internet is a great tool for teachers and it should definitely be used, but I do not think a teacher should use the internet for everything. There are definitely things that can be taken from the internet

that another teacher has made and it can be extremely effective, but a good teacher will know his or her students better than anyone. This means that, as a teacher, sure I can use the internet to find stuff, but I have to rely on my knowledge to know when to implement these other assessments and when I need to come up with one myself. I also need to know when to alter assessments I get from other teachers to better fit the classroom I have. This is also something that will come from practice and experience.