Diana Miculescu

EDSC 7550
4 April 2019
Professional Responsibility Reflection
Throughout my field experience, I have thought about my experiences with students,
parents, other teachers, and school administrators and used these experiences to reflect on my
own practices, communication, and actions within the classroom. Reflecting on these
experiences, I have thought about what methods of instruction and communication is best for
each individual student, and which methods are outdated and fail to engage students. Over the
past eight months, I have developed a sense of what kinds of learning environments provides
opportunities for students to want to demonstrate their learning by encouraging students to share
their ideas, questions, and opinions as it relates to the personal assets they bring into the
classroom.
At my field placement, I have observed how my mentor teacher leads their classroom in a
way which engages most students. I have adopted some of the instructional practices my mentor
teacher uses in my own teaching and continue to work on areas of improvement as noted by my
mentor teacher and university supervisor during formal lesson observations. In addition to this, I
have also had the opportunity to be observed by the science department chairs at my field
placement and discuss the strengths and areas of improvement regarding my teaching. The
discussion with the science department chairs was particularly eye-opening for me, as these two
teachers did not personally know me, but were still able to provide constructive feedback on my
teaching which I adopted in my following teaching experiences. They also encouraged me to
observe other teachers at my field placement to further deepen my own learning experience and
collaborate with other teachers. Observing other teachers, both in my content, and outside of my
content, helped me see how each teacher is different and that there is no one way to teach. Each
classroom makes up its own community and culture, and the way in which the teacher interacts
with each group of students depends on what the students and the teacher brings to the table.
To continually reflect on my own work, I have collaborated with my mentor teacher and
other science teachers to share and create lessons. Within the Professional Learning Community
of biology teachers at my field placement, we prepared for each unit by revising unit summative
assessments, reflected on past lessons and assessments by analyzing student scores across
learning standards.
At my field placement, I had the opportunity to take part in professional development on
multiple occasions. During one of these experiences, I, along with other teachers within my
content area, analyzed “The Learning/Engagement Cube” based on Classroom Instruction That
Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement, Taxonomy of
educational objectives: The classification of educational goals, and Working on the Work to
revise past lessons to support student engagement ad learning (Marzano, Pickering & Pollock,
2001; Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill & Krathwohl, 1956; Schlechty, 2002). We focused on right
engaging qualities of work which included personal response, clear/modeled expectations,
emotional/intellectual safety, learning with others, sense of audience, choice, novelty and variety,
and authenticity and high yield instructional strategies such as identifying similarities and
differences, summarizing and notetaking, nonlinguistic representation, generating and testing
hypotheses, and advanced questions, cues, and organizers. Using the Quality-Plus Teaching
Strategies Coherence Framework, we revised a lesson segment on mechanisms of evolution
which engages students, uses multiple high yield instructional strategies, and provides multiple
and different opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning. The Quality-Plus Teaching
Strategies Coherence Framework focuses on the student, teacher, and content, three foundational
strategies, literacy, assessment and feedback, and student-goal setting, frequently used research-
based instructional strategies, and use of technology to enhance and support the strategies used
(Gwinnett County Public Schools, 2006). To ensure the revisions were aligned to Quality-Plus
Teaching Strategies Coherence Framework, we analyzed which aspects of the lesson could be
leveraged to ensure the learning standards taught were at the appropriate depth and rigor and
identified the language within the district learning standards which suggested the use of a
particular strategy for student learning or student demonstration of learning. This particular
experience provided me with the opportunity to continually evaluate my instructional practices I
use or do not use and deepen my understanding on how the instructional choices I make has
effects on student learning.
In my field experience, I have had the opportunity to work with different instructors
throughout the year. I have had the most time observing and working with my mentor teacher,
however, when my mentor teacher took an extended leave, I had the opportunity to work with a
recently retired math teacher with about thirty-years of teaching experience. While this substitute
was not formally educated in science content, their knowledge and experience of learner
development, learning differences, learning environments, assessment, instructional strategies,
leadership, and collaboration proved to be beneficial in their success as the substitute for seven
weeks of instruction. Observing this teacher come into class each day prepared with the
necessary content knowledge to support learners, this teacher, along with their years of
instructional experience, was able to provide an environment where learners thrived. Of the two
unit summative assessments during the seven weeks, students taught by the substitute scored at
the same level or higher than students taught by teachers formally educated in science content.
This demonstrates the importance of continually engaging in professional learning throughout a
teacher’s career, as this teacher has done throughout their thirty-years teaching career.
Reflection of my own practices, the practices of other teacher, and the work of my
students is extremely important in providing a learning environment appropriate for each student.
Reflection could be thought of as one aspect of my professional responsibility, as it is also
necessary to grow and change as an educator by adapting practices to meet the needs of each
student.
 References
Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational
goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York, Toronto: Longmans, Green.
Gwinnett County Public Schools. (2006). Quality-Plus Teaching Strategies Coherence
Framework. Suwanee, GA
Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works:
Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Schlechty, P. (2002). Working on the Work. San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.