Impact on learning JE3

Impact on learning  

Teachers must help students develop the specific types of thinking that our civilization values, such as analytical reasoning, interpretation, metaphorical thinking, creative design, categorization, hypothesizing, drawing inferences and synthesis. Students need to experience these kinds of thinking for themselves with appropriate modeling and facilitation from their teachers and others. When they do, language, thinking, and conceptual understanding are intertwined as students construct ideas, systems, and processes for themselves. (Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde, 2005)

My goal is to teach students how to apply their knowledge of course material to new situations that are not directly covered in class. The goal here is to show the students not only that what they are learning has practical applications, but more importantly, how to apply their understanding of the basic principles to real world problems. I had student’s complete daily nutrition and fitness logs, this allowed students and myself to track their progress as the semester continued. Students applied the knowledge acquired in class along with analyzing the result from their activity and nutrition logs to create a 2 month fitness program for and an adult family member.  Students had to assess their family member and create a workout and nutrition plan to create healthier lifestyle habits.

This project has shown me that assessments are not just about paper, pencil and a person, their as so many factors that must be thought about when creating an assessment for your class to ensure their success. I found that my students had the ability to perform proficiently if I created the correct learning and testing environment. When I did not create a place where students felt confident they did not perform well. As I adapted the testing environment as well as enhanced our lessons to focus on the learning objects I had 100 percent of my class pass with 90 and above.  My students scored well on their test and with that came a boost in their confidence and created a class that thirst for more knowledge. This gave rise to one of the greatest accomplishment a teacher can have, my students took what they learned in class and taught others.

We never forget our best teachers—those who imbued us with a deeper understanding or an enduring passion, the ones we come back to visit years after graduating, the educators who opened doors and altered the course of our lives.

Resource

Zemelman, S., Daniels, D., and Hyde, A. (2005). Best Practice: Today’s Standards for Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools (3rd edition). Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann

Mastery of Competencies JE2

Mastery of Competencies

Competency 3. Teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning. This experience has taught me the importance of continually assessment. No single test can ascertain whether all educational goals are being met.  “A variety of assessments are necessary to provide educators with a well-rounded view of what students know and can do. Just as different tests provide different information, no one kind of test can tell us all we need to know about a student's learning. This "multiple-measures approach" to assessment is the keystone to valid, reliable and fair information about student achievement”.( McGraw-Hill, 2011)

During this unit I learned the importance of implementing informal assessment before administering a formal assessment to monitor student learning. Students must have mini evaluations to make sure they are meeting learning targets. It is also important for teachers to give informal assessments to ensure they are actually teaching the material they planned to teach. So many times we create our lessons with the goal of teaching a particular thing and due to circumstance we may not get to those objectives but still test for it on a formal assessment. Giving informal assessments in different forms to make sure all students are included eliminate those issues and make sure students and teachers are on target for the proposed learning goals.  

Competency 4. Teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience. Upon administering my students initial assessment I planned to use particular teaching techniques to cater to the diversity of my classroom. As I began to teach, I just taught and did not really reflect about how I was teaching the material, and failed to execute my lessons as planned.  I learned that I must not only assess my students but assess myself, Self assessments must not only take place at the end of a unit but daily and even after activities to make sure I am serving my students to the best of my ability. I must be able to think on my feet correcting instructional mistakes making sure students are constantly on task taking in information and processing it correctly.  One way I can make sure I am on track is to have a check list along with my lesson plans to ensure I am staying on task. I can also incorporate Do now questions on the prior days lesson to see if I can move on to the next topic without losing my students. My goal is to create an active learning environment where learning is student centered and not teacher centered.

Resources

McGraw Hill (2011) Assessments retrieved Feb 11, 2011 http://www.ctb.com/ctb.com/control/assessmentBasicsTabAction?p=underAssess

Relective Teaching (JE#1)

All of us have struggled from time to time with our teaching and our students’ learning. Sometimes it is easy to determine what isn’t working and why while other times we remain perplexed. Self-reflection is a great skill that all teachers should aim to perfect but is a very difficult skill to objectively acquire. This semester one of my greatest accomplishments has been the creation of my physical education in outer space unit. This has brought me much joy as I have seen it come into fruition but has also placed many challenges in my path. 

One of the challenges I was faced with during this unit was incorporating the multiple learning styles that make up my class.  My classroom is comprised of regular education students mixed in with English language learners, emotional disturbed, and students with varied levels of learning disabilities. I felt the best way to tackle this array of intellect was to incorporate Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences.  This will allow students to safely explore and learn in many different ways; using different tactics would help students direct their own learning. As I go through my lessons and use different modalities it will allow me to help my students understand and appreciate their strengths, and involve them in real-world activities that will stimulate more learning.

As always things often do not go as planned, the unit progress well, students were engaged, answering questions and they were even excited which I thought was a bonus. The reality check came when I gave my students their first assessment in the form of a short answer quiz.  I was truly amazed at the results; if I didn’t know better I would have thought it was a pretest because most of my students scored below 40 and about 5 student received 90 or better. As I sat and tried to figure out where I went wrong I looked at the test scores and realized it the 90’s came from my regular education students. I then began to replay my lessons. "By its nature, the reflective practice cycle causes teachers to step back and critically reflect not only on how they teach, but also on why they teach in a particular way." Schon, D.A. (1996). I realized that I did not differentiate my learning I only lectured to my class although we engaged in small group activities most of the class was conducted in a conversational format. It was imperative that I varied my teaching styles due to the variety of students I had. I retaught the main topics ensuring that I used the smart board, drawings, visual aids and physical movements for students to understand the concepts. I continued to do so throughout the unit and the class as a whole did much better on their following test.

Effective teaching is truly measured based on the success of the students in the class, reflection by the teacher as well as a revision of the methods used in the classroom indicate a teacher that is willing to grow professionally.  With each day my students are not the only ones that are learning in my classroom.  They are the greatest teachers and I am always interested to see what they will teach me and how they will mold me into a better teacher and all around person.

Resource

Schon, D.A. (1996). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco: Jossey