2A.3: Meeting Diverse Needs
During the fall CAP meeting, my university mentor granted me a rating of “Needs Improvement” and my mentor teacher granted me a rating of “Proficient and Needs Improvement” in terms of meeting diverse needs. Some of the suggestions for improvement included following through with the personalizations for students with disabilities and English Language Learners, utilizing the walls of the classroom more, and making prototypes of my projects.
Since the fall, I have implemented all of the suggestions for improvement from the fall in terms of meeting diverse needs. I have made an effort to accommodate my lessons more to my students with disabilities and English Language Learners, translating all important information into Spanish for the majority of my ELLs and individually addressing non-Spanish-speaking ELLs. I also used the walls of the classroom to display excellent student work (to hold my students to higher expectations) and relevant information for each unit (to remind students of my objectives and the essential questions). Every unit also included a few different prototypes of the project (of varying difficulty to differentiate instruction) for students to reference.
Part of the classroom wall before student work was displayed. A visual aid of the principles and elements of design are posted, as well as a student-made collaborative on-going color wheel.
A display of excellent student work from third quarter.
Part of the classroom wall that displays the steps, objectives, and essential questions from my Op Art Scratchboard unit. All the information was also translated into Spanish as most of my English Language Learners spoke Spanish.
Another example of relevant unit information posted on the classroom wall from my Positive and Negative Space unit. All information was again translated in Spanish.
The “word wall” in the classroom with all vocabulary terms translated to Spanish, as most of my ELL students were Spanish-speakers.
2B.1: Safe Learning Environment
During the fall CAP meeting, my university mentor granted me a rating of “Proficient” and my mentor teacher granted me a rating of “Proficient and Needs Improvement” in terms of creating a safe learning environment. I maintained classroom routines verbally but did not post written routines on the wall. One of the suggestions for improvement was to post classroom rules on the wall to hold students consistently accountable for maintaining a safe physical and intellectual environment.
Since the fall, I discussed with my students ways in which we could make the classroom a more safe and productive space in order to create a classroom contract. Please refer to my Reflection on Growth in the Classroom Learning Community section for more information. I continued to establish respect for my students and in return received respect as a teacher. I continued to foster strong relationships with my students to keep the focus on teaching instead of managing disruptive behaviors.
2D.2: High Expectations
During the fall CAP meeting, both my university mentor and my mentor teacher granted me ratings of “Needs Improvement” in terms of having high expectations for my students. Some of the suggestions for improvement were to model my lessons more effectively so students could master challenging material through effective effort, as well as consistently redirecting students to be a part of the learning environment.
Since the fall, I incorporated more modeling into my lessons using the “I do, we do, you do” method. Please see my lesson on Intro to Diptychs as an example of effective modeling. I would use finished prototypes as examples of high expectations for my students, as well as model the process of how to achieve those expectations. Please also refer to my Reflections on growth in student learning for more information on how I maintained high expectations for my students. I pushed students to continue putting effort into their projects and to persevere through the difficult areas in order to successfully complete the assignments.