PROGRAM PORTFOLIO SAMPLES OF REFLECTION

Reflection: Provide an explanation of why you selected this work sample for your program portfolio and reflect on the submission. Why does it demonstrate your ability with the specified standard and subparts? Let the reviewer know why it provides evidence of your growth as a teacher. (Recommended word counts: 400-600) 

To design this science unit, I had to understand the topic of weather and its major concepts for content delivery in a first grade classroom, as well as understand how to integrate the content with other subject areas. This resulted in a unit that integrates varied approaches to teaching and exploring weather concepts and allows students to connect the subject of weather and its subparts to everyday life while they move through interdisciplinary learning experiences. This unit reflects a new level of lesson planning and curriculum development for me.

I chose to design my elementary science methods instructional unit for first graders because they are at the age and developmental level I presently understand the best and feel the most confident about how to teach and support the teaching/learning process.

This unit reflects my understanding of developmentally appropriate and varied methods of presenting material, building upon students’ prior knowledge and experiences, and linking the subject matter to other disciplines looks like at the first grade level. First grade is a very foundational time in students’ education and my focus was for students to gain a solid knowledge base of weather concepts and terms. My goal was to meaningfully engage learners in awareness of the daily weather so they felt like young weather experts, or “junior meteorologists.”

This weather unit is organized by topics that build and feed off of one another so students are exposed to key ideas by means of multiple representations and a variety of engaging lesson activities to best support their understanding. The discipline of science lends itself naturally to hands-on learning. These experiences encourage students to engage more fully in their learning, apply learning experiences to their lives and the world around them, create more meaning from their learning, and to analyze and compare their experiences and results with one another in a richer learning environment.

My first grade weather unit is full of hands-on learning experiences that involve students in the process of scientific inquiry and demonstrates their role as scientists, specifically, as meteorologists. I took a guided discovery approach in designing each of the ten lessons. I also designed a variety of assessment methods for students to gauge their developmental levels and needs to support their understanding of the key concepts for each lesson.

This weather unit enables students to integrate what they are learning in science into other contexts and domains of learning, broadens their understanding and applications of the topic of weather and all of its subparts. Integrating other subject areas into this unit helps students apply what there are learning in new and different ways.

 1st GradeWatherUnit.doc

EDU4415 Educational Ethics

Reflection: Provide an explanation of why you selected this work sample for your program portfolio and reflect on the submission. Why does it demonstrate your ability with the specified standard and subparts? Let the reviewer know why it provides evidence of your growth as a teacher. (Recommended word counts: 400-600) 

This research and reflection paper shows the depth of research into and reflection upon issues of poverty and its relevance to many students I have worked with in field placements. This paper was part of a collaborative presentation on the topic. We chose to research and present on poverty because it is a major issue affecting many students. It is my responsibility as a teacher to understand how various factors from students’ environments outside of school impact not only their learning, but their entire lives. A significant focus of my research and writing for this paper concerns different ethical views that may come into play in regard to educating students who live in poverty. This project has given me a greater frame of reference for and understanding of the multitude of influences upon students’ lives and learning, in regard to poverty and in respect to ethical issues surrounding students and public education.

This ethics paper gave me the opportunity to consider at far greater depth the impacts that a background of poverty often has and may potentially have upon students and their learning.

Equally as important, I entered into a higher, more critical level of thinking in regards to how students, families, teachers, administrators, and school board members react to issues related to students in poverty and the impact—for better or worse—these mindsets, decisions, and actions have upon students and their right to learn.

One of my goals as a teacher, formulated as a result of this paper, is to impart a sense of hope and confidence in each student and to help equip them to overcome any difficult circumstances or obstacles they may face. Understanding poverty and its potential impact on students.

Another significant aspect of this paper was to reflect and respond from a biblical standpoint. I fully understand and acknowledge the place personal religion and faith have in a public school, but I also recognize how my beliefs strongly shape how I view and respond to the issue of educating students in poverty. I believe wholeheartedly that all students—regardless of economic conditions and family circumstances—have the right to fair treatment, equal access to education and learning, respect, appropriate treatment from all related to the school system. My personal beliefs strongly influence the value I place on all students, regardless of their socio-economic circumstances, and this project has motivated me to help all students meet their highest potential.

Research and Reflection Paper.doc

Reflection: Provide an explanation of why you selected this work sample for your program portfolio and reflecton the submission. Why does it demonstrate your ability with the specified standard and subparts? Let the reviewer know why it provides evidence of your growth as a teacher. (Recommended word counts: 400-600) 

This artifact demonstrates my ability to work with students of diverse needs and talents. I interviewed three students of different academic achievement, and I used this information to guide my planning for a lesson on pronouns for my sixth grade placement. Of these students, one student was autistic, one student was an ELL student, and one student was a low achieving student. This artifact encompasses subparts A, E, and G.

My cooperating teacher guided me in my selection of three students to interview. She specifically chose students who did not fit the stereotype of the “normal” high-, middle-, and low- achieving students. I really enjoyed the process of specifically talking to each of these students to learn what ways they enjoy learning best and what kinds of activities really motivate them.

Interviewing students really helped me to remember that individual students would be coming away from the lesson I was teaching with specific knowledge about the subject matter; my lesson wasn’t being planned for a general sixth grade class. Interviewing these students helped me to understand and appreciate the differences between students’ learning processes, and I attempted to plan my lesson so that students would learn through a variety of instructional strategies.

Before doing this assignment, I had a vague idea that students learned differently, but I really had no idea of what the unique needs were in my own cooperating classroom. My cooperating teacher is really good at building relationships with the students, and because she has those relationships to guide her planning, it assisted me in my own planning. In the future, I will want to capitalize on those relationships and use them not only to be an influence in a student’s life but also to plan my instruction in such a way that student learning is maximized.

Student Interviews.doc