2A.3: Meeting Diverse Needs
I am really grateful that I had the opportunity to teach both Goddard Scholars and College Prep classes, as it exposed me to a wide range of needs in students, and asked a lot of my lesson planning. Over the course of the year, I was able to practice adding in scaffolds to GSA lesson plans in order to make them more accessible to CP classes, and practice removing supports from CP lesson plans in order to make them more rigorous for my GSA classes. I incorporate choice as much as possible in my lesson plans, especially as it comes to group work vs. individual or pair work. I like to show my students that I trust them to know what’s best for their learning, while also understanding which of my lesson plans require the structure of total facilitation on my end.
Evidence:
“Students had the option of reading their own poems or reading a friends. Before the presentations, students had multiple opportunities to practice on their friends and with partners.” -Dr. Rosa Nam
“The pairs/groups of 3 were created intentionally based on familiarity with students/ who works best with each other, in addition to considering their progress on the prompt and their prior understanding of the writing process.” -Katie Eressy
2B.1: Safe Learning Environment
I try to manage behavioral issues, difficult areas of content or instruction, etc. with kindness, grace and humor. I want all of my students to feel that I respect them as people and know that I love having them in my class. I have developed strong rapport with all of my classes and have reliable practices in my lesson plans and teaching style that boost class morale and create a routine that students expect, which I have found leads to less dysregulation in students. Students in my classes are very comfortable with each other and I allow for moments of casual outbursts and distraction if they are in good spirits and lead to the strengthening of our classroom community. Overall, I always keep in mind that my classroom is just one hour out of a long day for students, in which they could be dealing with all sorts of stressors that I don’t know about, so I try to make my classroom as calm and comfortable of an environment as I can.
Evidence:
“Olivia encouraged the class to support their classmates. There was a lot of cheering and encouragement before and after presentations.” Dr. Rosa Nam
“Olivia has built in routines and consistently responds to student behaviors that interfere with learning in a fair and respectful way. In general, there are very few management issues in her class and she is able to prevent them by identifying and working with students who need extra support ahead of time.” -Dr. Rosa Nam
“Ms. Winters is really good at being friendly with students, while also maintaining her position of authority as a teacher. She also gives generally engaging assignments that the students are actually motivated to work on.” -Anonymous student
2D.2: High Expectations
Something I have loved about some of my classes is that they clearly desire to be pushed academically. They challenge me to create lessons that will push them harder, and I have really appreciated this symbiosis. Through my lesson plans I encourage students to get in the habit of revising their work, referring to prior readings and drawing on class conversations. This year I have pushed students in their reading through incorporating high level, academic texts in curriculum; in their writing through creative and analytical essay assignments, regular exit tickets that they revise to practice editing and writing skills; and in their speaking through fishbowl seminars and other forms of group work that encourage discussion without teacher intervention, as well as in facilitated discussions where I push students to expand on their answers.
Evidence:
“Olivia consistently has high expectations for her students and encourages them to work independently and together to support each other in their learning. She actively circulates to check for understanding and provide scaffolded support for students.” -Dr. Rosa Nam
“Olivia made this lesson relevant to the students and set her objectives for them clearly at the start of class. She explained that “I’ve been looking at exit tickets and this is why we are going to work on specific parts of writing today”. When the discussion was happening, she practiced waiting for other students to participate and continued to ask for more from their answers.” -Katie Eressy
“Olivia set high expectations for students in revising the example response as well as working on their own using their new knowledge. The Romeo and Juliet questions themselves were high-level and worked to push student critical consciousness such as the last handout question on Romeo’s reinforcement of masculinity.” -Dr. Rosa Nam
“Ms. Winter’s makes assignments for us that cater to our ability and breaks down larger assignments into smaller sections so we can easily understand and complete them. Ms. Winter’s helps us understand our classwork and connects to us in a way that makes it much easier to learn.” -Anonymous student
“Ms. Winters is very good at creating guides to help us complete assignments. She also knows how to explain something with specific details so that I understand what I have to do.” -Anonymous student