Assignment 1: Reflection Paper
Telling My Story
Margaret Nelson
TED 690
National University
Dr. Pengilly
February 10, 2020
Abstract:
This assignment begins with an analysis of my progress and artifacts in support of TPE Domain A: Making Subject Matter Comprehensible to Students. This analysis will serve as an evaluation of my progress in achieving competency in TPE Domain A. My strengths and learning needs in this domain will be identified, with a rationale to explain my strengths and opportunities for learning. This assignment will discuss potential competencies to be used in my PDQP.
The TPE’s and Their Domains
The Teaching Performance Expectations (TPE’s) structured by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (2020) are a set of expectations containing skills each teacher must demonstrate in order to be recommended for a preliminary teaching credential. The TPE’s outline the basic skills and competencies needed to provide safe, structured, and supportive learning environments for a multitude of diverse learners. Each and every student can be supported through proper practice of the TPE’s. Each skill is organized into broader categories, which are as follows as listed from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (2020):
- Domain A: Making Subject Matter Comprehensible to Students
- Domain B: Assessing Student Learning
- Domain C: Engaging and Supporting Students in Learning
- Domain D: Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for Students
- Domain E: Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning
- Domain F: Developing as a Professional Educator
Domain A: Making Subject Matter Comprehensible to Students:
Telling My Story
I have grown immensely as an educator since my first days in the classroom in the role of a substitute teacher. Upon entering the classroom, the first thing I sought each day was the plan left by the classroom teacher. Almost 100% of the plans left for me made sense, and I could easily infer where they fit within a grander scope of grade-level learning; a skill which improved the more I experienced each grade level as a substitute teacher. Very often, however, I could tell students were not connecting to the material. It seemed they did not know why it was important, or how it could help them in their future learning. I remember well how I struggled, trying different things to explain lesson material. Upon reflection, it is easy for me to see how in those early days, I presented an expectation for students to appreciate the new knowledge tasks at face-value, without context.
Strengths and Learning Needs
The following table shows my strengths and learning needs, based upon my reflection from those early beginning days as a substitute teacher:
Making Subject Matter Comprehensible to Students:
Strengths
|
Learning Needs
|
|
TPE 1: Specific Pedagogical Skills for Subject Matter Instruction
|
Goal setting: from the start, I became proficient in creating and maintaining an environment where students were on task, and our lesson goals for that day were well-known.
|
Inexperience with California Common Core standards. I had not yet learned how to plan a unit of study.
|
TPE 1A: Teaching English/ Language Arts
|
I was highly organized when it came to objectives. Students were always aware of the vocabulary, literary devices, or literature we would be addressing in each lesson.
|
Inexperience with making lesson plans. I had not yet learned how to generate a lesson plan which would address the needs of all learners.
|
TPE 1A: Teaching Mathematics
|
I systematically guided students through textbooks, answering questions and helping them solve example problems.
|
I noticed I was unable to keep students engaged when introducing new concepts. Students would show frustration—I could tell they wanted to learn, but did not know how to master the information.
|
TPE 1A: Teaching Science
|
In a first grade classroom, I guided students through a basic lesson about caterpillars and how they change into butterflies. Students loved the art project I assigned, as well as the storybooks that went along with this lesson.
|
Students were not able to use academic language to explain how caterpillars become butterflies.
|
TPE 1A: Teaching History-Social Science
|
Because I have personal experience volunteering for a local Native American tribe, I was able to share an awareness of Native Peoples of California with a third grade classroom, and students were engaged and fascinated at their newfound understanding of diverse people who live so close to them.
|
This lesson didn’t really fit within a larger unit of study in this third grade classroom.
|
Potential Competencies to Develop as a Professional
When examining my strengths and learning needs from my beginning days in the classroom as a substitute teacher, there are a few things that were common learning needs. First, I had not yet learned to design lessons which would address the needs of all learners. Secondly, though I had a firm grasp on the “What” of learning; meaning the topics and objectives for learning, I had not yet developed skills to address the “How” and the “Why” of learning. In other words, the skills I would need to learn in order to address these learning needs included capitalizing on my strengths of organization while also increasing proficiency in learning about my students in order to make lesson content inclusive and accessible.
Tools I used to address learning the “How” and “Why” of learning included articles such as the one by Courey, Tappe, Siker, and Lepage (2013), which addressed Universal Design for Learning (UDL). By learning how to differentiate my instruction by including UDL strategies, I could make content comprehensible to students with tailor-made lessons that considered and included the diverse learners in my classroom. An example of this would be utilizing the section of National University lesson-planning templates which include a Pre-Assessment Activity. In this section, I began practicing developing activities which activated students’ prior knowledge in what they were learning. Activating prior knowledge provided a “Why” for learning because students could put the new information into a greater context and begin to build relationships with chunks of information. Creating differentiated instruction through UDL lesson planning also helped me with the “How” of learning.
The other element which helped me address these learning needs came during my Student Teaching assignment. I received coaching from my University Support Provider, who observed my delivery of some improved lesson plans. He suggested I could make content even more comprehensible to students by having them come up with examples and non-examples of our lesson objective which they generated from reality. For example, in a lesson I designed for third grade students about compound words, I asked students to generate their own examples from real life. Students discovered compound words such as “classroom,” and “lightbulb,” simply by looking around their learning environment. This went a long way toward helping students understand conceptually what the lesson was about, as well as building vocabulary for English Learners.
These experiences have shaped me as an educator. Upon reflection, it is easy for me to see how my students have received richer, more accessible instruction after I began to practice these skills. For this reason, I will continue to practice differentiated instruction, UDL strategies, and helping students achieve conceptual understanding in my role as a classroom teacher.
References:
Courey, S., Tappe, P., Siker, J., & Lepage, P. (2013). Improved Lesson Planning With Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Teacher Education and Special Education, 36(1), 7–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0888406412446178
No comments:
Post a Comment