The Penn State teacher continually and systematically inquires into the quality of his/her teaching and the conditions of schooling in order to enhance student learning and development.

My ability to monitor and adjust instructional strategies during teaching is one of my strengths in Domain C.  The students always have lots of questions and many comments and stories they want to share in regards to personal experiences related to a lesson.  Third graders in general need the topic to be explained at a level that they can make a connection with, so I always took advantage of those opportunities.  When I could tell the students were really excited about a particular topic, I strayed from the plans to keep the focus there.  For example, the kids responded really well to hearing me sing the Preamble during my unit and wanted that to be included as the start to every lesson.  To take advantage of this teachable moment, I agreed to sing the Preamble before each lesson if the students would sing it with me and on the final day of the unit they would have to sing it as a class without my help or the words to reference.  They agreed enthusiastically and this became one of my new goals for the unit.  Systematically analyzing assessment and taking the correct steps to follow up with the information I collected has been a point of focus for me.  In order to effectively analyze and apply the assessment data, I needed to record data from every task, formal or informal.  I recorded all of my formative assessment on a flip chart with an index card for each student.  There was one chart per subject all stored together on the same clipboard.  I also used Excel to create spreadsheets to record summative assessments, including spelling and selection tests and math fact drills.  Once I had the quizzes or tests graded, I made a spreadsheet breaking down the questions answered wrong and marking which specific topic it belongs to so it can be taught again if needed.  The spreadsheet provided a systematic tool for analyzing the data and gave some insight into class patterns with what was taught well and areas that will need to be addressed in future lessons.  The goal is essentially to always have evidence ready to present to administrators and parents regarding each student’s progress whenever it may become necessary.

The teacher monitors and adjusts instructional and assessment strategies during teaching.

The language arts block in my classroom is composed of many aspects that are all tied into the Scott Foresman Reading series.  The spelling, vocabulary, grammar, phonics, and reading skills lessons correspond to a specific story each week.  As a separate piece of language arts, I read-aloud Matilda to the students each day to develop their listening comprehension skills and as an introduction for literature circles using Roald Dahl stories.  While reading the chapter entitled The Trunchbull, I recognized an opportunity to connect Matilda to the current story's skill lesson.  Students had practiced comparing and contrasting two characters using a Venn diagram after reading the story earlier in the week.  After reading about the Trunchbull and Miss Honey, I decided to make a Venn diagram as a group to review the skill and make the connection for students to their prior knowledge.  Comparing and contrasting is also the theme for the writing benchmark assessment next month, so this extra practice will be beneficial to the students again in the near future.

The teacher systematically analyzes assessment data to characterize performance of whole class and relevant sub-groups of students.

It is essential to use the assessments of your students to plan for the next steps in their learning.  Each child will not begin a lesson with the same amount of prior knowledge, so I used this Quick Draw Write to find out the amount of background knowledge each student had.  After administering this assignment, I was able to use the results to determine the level of understanding across my class.  I used the data I gathered from this assessment to plan where I would start teaching my corresponding unit.  After analyzing the performance of each student, I was able to get an accurate idea of whether the children had correct, emerging, or incorrect preconceptions about the topic. Then, based on the results, I systematically divided the class up based on their prior knowledge and planned my teaching accordingly.

The teacher uses data from his/her own classroom teaching to evaluate his/her own strengths and areas for improvement.

After implementing my first video recording of my teaching, I watched the thirty-minute lesson and analyzed myself for strengths and areas of improvement.  Originally, I looked at my questioning techniques and classroom management as areas for improvement, but ultimately, I decided to analyze one of my strengths.  As a teacher, the ability to reflect upon and learn from our own teaching for future lessons is one of our strongest assets.  I chose to focus on one of my strengths, my use of positive reinforcement, and see how I can improve in this area because I know I can always refine and strengthen my abilities in every area of teaching.  I believe teaching is a life-long learning process, and this analysis provides some data to evaluate and help me grow in the profession.  In future lessons, I remembered my analysis and used the knowledege regarding how positive reinforcement helps students to continue this practice.