How data will be used

Knowing and understanding the contextual factors of community, school and students should be very helpful to make decisions when I make lesson plans. The environments where students live and resources that are available to me there are important to know. Some schools may be greatly supported by community but others may not. It is also important to know school policies about discipline, homework, grading, improvement plans and school rules so that I can be consistent with other teachers. I also would like to find out what resources will be available including involvement of parents, volunteers, library, technologies such as computers and common planning times with other teachers.

I would like to make sure that my lesson plans align with the Standards and will address objectives of lesson plans. When I had my class play fraction games during my practicum, the students showed a great improvement in learning. Furthermore, some students showed learning gains through homework because they needed more time to work on problems. Therefore, I want to incorporate a variety of learning activities to support learning for diverse learners. There were no students with special needs in my practicum class. However, I will make modifications if there is any student with special needs such as English Language Learners so that they will meet the same standards as their nondisabled classmates. I also will make adaptations to differentiate instructions for any student with special needs such as IEP students so that they will be successful at his level of ability.

I will give students Pre-Assessment to find out what pre-requisite skills and knowledge they already have before I start a new unit. The results will provide me with information what I should review before I start the unit or which topic I should skip in the unit. I will keep assessing during lessons through observations, homework, games, discussions, asking questions, having them solve problems on the board and having them ask questions. I will make sure they understand what I teach during lessons. After teaching a unit, I will have them take a Post-Assessment to find out their weakness and strength in the unit. I will ask them both simple questions and questions that require higher order thinking. I will review the content topics if they do not show understanding. Visual presentation would be very useful to make decisions about their learning and my teaching.