Students will be respectful and active participants in their learning community.

          From day one I was impressed by how well my students were able to work with one another, and interact with one another.  In result to the student coming in working in such a productive nature we were able to only make them stronger teammates and group members. The area of respectful interaction that must students struggled most with was dividing up work and including all of the team members. I am proud to say that following a few mini lessons, focused on possible language to use and the responsibilities of a good team member, I began seeing improved interactions and actually hearing vocabulary discussed int the mini lessons.

         One day one of this year I noticed that many of our students were reluctant to participate in lessons and were quiet during free time. This was an immediate red flag because we wanted a classroom community which was more cohesive and even flourishing with team work. We believed that having an active learning community was a must. By the end of the year I can be honest in saying that we still have some students who are reluctant to speak in full group and are naturally more withdrawn. On the other hand I can also say honestly that every student will now join a full group or small group conversation when invited in. I believe this is a result of classroom community and teacher to student trust.

Students will think as readers, writers, mathematicians, scientists, and historians.

           As seen by the work and data from the evidence and examples section, my students grew leaps and strides during this year. In each subject they either reviewed concepts they were familiar with, or we expanded their wealth of knowledge.

            Not only did the students test scores improve, but the students abilities to share and articulate their thoughts bloomed. The students came in day one with a very basic ability to share their thinking ( and have it make sense). In order to support the students in this difficult by valuable skill we provided the students with special sentence stems, opportunities to share their thinking before the full group, and made it an expectation in the classroom. By the end of the year students were not only sharing their thinking, but even respectfully debating student to student about their answers or explanations.

Students will grow from where they are, as students and people.

          As was mentioned previously, the majority of my students entered Room 312 as respectful people. My students of course grew from where they started as students as they proceeded through lessons, with every lesson designed with the goal to meet students where they are beginning in that moment.

          As people, each student entered with a different background, maturity level and interests. It was my pleasure to get to know these facts about the students and learn how to support them. By the end of the year we still had students who find themselves caught up in drama, saying unkind things, or struggling to regulate their emotions. The goal was for the students to grow, not master becoming people. Let’s be honest who has mastered those skills.  I am happy to report that this learning goal was met based on the improvement seen from the students which was seen on a daily basis!