2A.3: Meeting Diverse Needs
Evidence #1: “Mr. Porcella has been a tremendous help in several classes by occasionally pulling English Language Learners to assess their understanding, fill in gaps, and facilitate their engagement with material. He has also dedicated time on a weekly basis to helping one of his students become organized in his biology class. In his own fourth period class, Mr. Porcella has carefully provided supports and encouragement for weaker students, including one-on-one conferencing, small group work, and organizational tools for their notebooks, peer revision activities, proofreading and portfolio assignments” (P. Weyler)
Evidence #2: See additional pieces of evidence throughout this eFolio, including in the Case Study, Student Work Samples, and in my Classroom Learning Community.
Evidence #3: “Students were given a prompt to simulate SAT Essay writing. Mr. Porcella provided a prompt in Spanish to meet the needs of his ELL students. Perhaps a copy of the prompt would be better for SPED students, so that they have it in front of them and do not have to copy it off the board. Expectations should be repeated and clarified for all students–perhaps a review of the SAT rubric. Mr. Porcella uses a varied repertoire of practices to try to meet the needs of all of his students. The learning styles and levels of readiness are varied to the extreme in this class” (D. Carlson).
Evidence #4: “As his classroom management has improved, so too has Mr. Porcella’s ability to spend more time offering one-on-one support in class (he has always offered individual support outside of class, and stays after school several days a week to provide additional assistance to those students who need it) to struggling students. He is very attentive to the needs of each student, to the extent that he has taken the time to translate all handouts and instructions into Spanish for his lower level ELL students, and, in consultation with his mentor, school adjustment counselors, and prescribed IEP’s and 504 plans, developed strategies for working effectively with students on the autism spectrum and with other special needs. More generally, Mr. Porcella has helped some of his more reserved students to feel comfortable participating in whole group discussions through using think-pair-share and small group discussion activities as scaffolding tools, allowing students to think through their ideas in a more comfortable environment before sharing with the whole class. With the 9th graders, he worked to help each student develop his/her writing from whatever level they started by having them create individualized proofreading guides. With the 11th graders, he has also pushed all students to take creative risks and work outside their comfort zone by having them act out roles in A Streetcar Named Desire” (H. Roberts).
Explanation: It has been necessary to adapt to a variety of students, including those on IEPs and 504s and those designated as ELLs. My biggest area of strength within 2A.3 has been my willingness to put in the time to work with all students. As referenced above, I regularly put in time during prep periods and after school to meet with students who needed extra support, or who may not have needed it but still benefited from it. With the juniors, I offered up my sixth period to work with any students who were falling behind, and several thanked me for that in the teaching reflection I had them fill out (some results can be see in the Final Teaching Journal in the Philosophy & Growth section).
2B.1: Safe Learning Environment
Evidence #1: “Mr. Porcella creates lessons that encourage open thought and respectful collaboration. He expresses high expectations and models respectful behavior” (P. Weyler). “The atmosphere of the class was one that was physically safe and generally open to a diversity of opinions about the topic” (P. Weyler).
Evidence #2: Please visit my Reflection on Growth section for a timelines of reflections on the positive development in classroom decorum.
Evidence #3: “Mr. Porcella has established routines and offers appropriate responses that create a safe learning environment for students. There are still students that challenge rules and Mr. Porcella works to remain as proactive as possible […]” (D. Carlson).
Evidence #4: “Although classroom management remains his self-acknowledged area of greatest challenge, Mr. Porcella improved significantly over the course of his practicum in his ability to manage all of his classes effectively. He continued to use starter prompts and other class routines to help students settle down at the beginning of class, and, with his 9th graders, introduced assigned table seating to help keep particular students from distracting one another. He became much more confident in handling student misbehavior swiftly and appropriately, occasionally sending individual students out of class for overtly disruptive or disrespectful behavior […], but always making sure to talk with them one-on-one in the hallway and resolve any lingering conflicts before re-integrating them into the class. He was also much more consistent about immediately addressing student comments (again, especially with the 9th graders) that were rude or otherwise inappropriate, helping the 9th graders to transform into a mutually respectful learning community in which students generally listen to one another, use “academic” rather than slang or other inappropriate language in class discussions, and do not talk over one another. With the 11th graders, his challenge was more to create an environment in which a wider range of students felt welcomed into whole class discussion, and, using scaffolding strategies such as those mentioned in the “Adjustment to Practice” section, he has succeeded admirably. Though he still occasionally has his bad days (as do veteran teachers), I feel that Mr. Porcella has attained proficiency in this area and am confident he will be even more effective when he has his own classroom throughout the year and can establish and reinforce work and behavior expectations from day one” (H. Roberts).
Explanation: The freshmen started off the year with some rude and disrespectful tendencies, though I was able to help students understand what was rude about behaviors such as talking over others. This was my biggest focus area this year, and it is the area I feel I will need to continue to put the most time into in order to promote a positive classroom learning community. With the juniors, I was very successful at managing student behavior after the first few weeks, which I attribute to learning so much about creating safe learning environments with the ninth graders.
2D.2: High Expectations
Evidence #1: “Mr. Porcella consistently communicates high expectations both directly and indirectly in the ways in which he communicates with students, respects their original thought, and provides them with rich and meaningful work” (P. Weyler).
Evidence #2: “Mr. Porcella assigned students to read a moderately challenging literary classic and asked open-ended questions about the intentions of the characters and the judgement we should, as readers, accord their actions. This demonstrates a respect for students’ abilities to think and an expectation that they will be genuinely involved in this class. By directing students to talk with each other in small groups about the questions posed, he sent the message that he expects them to think, to share their thoughts, and to listen to the thoughts of others” (P. Weyler).
Evidence #3: “Mr. Porcella continued to push his students to hone their writing skills by providing focused writing and revising workshops in class, meeting frequently with individual students to give them feedback on their drafts, and by continuing to invite them to publish their work on his class website. When he was disappointed that a set of interpretive essays he received from his 11th graders showed more plot summary than actual interpretation, he reviewed this common problem, re-explained how to distinguish between summary and analysis, and offered students the opportunity to revise their essays for better grades. Since our formative assessment meeting, he also focused more explicitly on raising his expectations for students’ efforts to both speak effectively in class (presenting their ideas clearly, developing them sufficiently, and providing evidence for their points) and listen attentively to their peers. Specifically, he helped hold students to these expectations by frequently responding “say more” when students (especially his 11th graders) offered undeveloped responses, or “what in the text made you think that?” if they failed to offer support for a point they were making. He set clear expectations in his Streetcar unit that all students would participate in the staging of scenes from the play, scaffolding these performances by having students create promptbooks (annotations of scenes, including stage directions and notes on gestures, intonations, etc.) and having students elect to serve as directors, stage managers, musical/sound effects designers, etc. While several of his shyer students initially clung to these non-acting roles, he required that students rotate roles each week, ensuring that every student had the opportunity to act at least once during the course of the play. Overall, I believe he succeeded in meeting his mid-practicum practice goals of being “better able to facilitate deep, engaging discussions” and helping students be able to ‘speak without interruption'” (H. Roberts).
Explanation: My freshman and juniors have always commented on my ability to push them to think more deeply about literature and the world (this fits with my Teaching Philosophy and also can be seen in my Teaching Journals). Students even began to groan (with a smile, most of the time!) when I told them to “SAY MORE” during a class conversation. I even made it a game, in a way, where students had to anticipate when I would tell them to say more about an idea or response.