My Professional Growth in EDUC 316: Secondary Curriculum and Instruction II | Shown Through the Danielson Framework
Domain 1: Planning and Preparation
A major assignment that I completed for this class was creating a unit test on the book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. The creation of this unit test falls under Danielson Domain 1: Planning and Preparation because component 1f of Domain 1 focuses on designing student assessments. The unit test is a comprehensive review of the novel. It focuses on assessing major objectives that I focused on when teaching a unit plan on this novel for a sixth grade language arts class which included discussion and application of historical context to understand the character actions and plot events of the novel, a study on the concept of characterization, familiarization and application of the concepts of a plot structure diagram to events in the novel, recognition and application of figurative language concepts to the text, and a focus on the Big Ideas of race, community, and independence. The test is meant to be administered over a two day period. The first day the students will take a multi-part exam consisting of matching and fill-in-the blank questions as well as short essay questions. The first part of the exam focuses on assessing objectives relating to characterization, plot structure, figurative language and Big Ideas. The second part of the exam consists of a text-dependent analysis essay question that ties together the Big Ideas of the unit of community and race with the historical context of the novel. The creation of this exam grew my planning skills as a professional educator because it challenged me to think critically about what important concepts stood out to me from our unit on the novel that I needed to include on a summative assessment. I was challenged to think critically about how to equitably and comprehensively assess the content that I would cover in my unit. Additionally, the creation of this test developed my skills in using Google Documents to create classroom materials so that this test could be easily shared with my cooperating teacher because her school has a 1:1 Chromebook to student ratio, and she uses Google Classroom as her main landing page for all classroom materials. I also adapted the test to meet the needs of Multilingual Learners (MLL) and students with IEPs. These adaptions are mentioned in general ways on the test because I did not have any specific students who were MLLs or who had IEPs in the class that I taught. This practice in adaptions prepared me to continue to think creatively about how I can plan effectively and develop powerful adaptions to content so that all students can succeed.
A major assignment that I completed for this class was creating a unit test on the book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. The creation of this unit test falls under Danielson Domain 1: Planning and Preparation because component 1f of Domain 1 focuses on designing student assessments. The unit test is a comprehensive review of the novel. It focuses on assessing major objectives that I focused on when teaching a unit plan on this novel for a sixth grade language arts class which included discussion and application of historical context to understand the character actions and plot events of the novel, a study on the concept of characterization, familiarization and application of the concepts of a plot structure diagram to events in the novel, recognition and application of figurative language concepts to the text, and a focus on the Big Ideas of race, community, and independence. The test is meant to be administered over a two day period. The first day the students will take a multi-part exam consisting of matching and fill-in-the blank questions as well as short essay questions. The first part of the exam focuses on assessing objectives relating to characterization, plot structure, figurative language and Big Ideas. The second part of the exam consists of a text-dependent analysis essay question that ties together the Big Ideas of the unit of community and race with the historical context of the novel. The creation of this exam grew my planning skills as a professional educator because it challenged me to think critically about what important concepts stood out to me from our unit on the novel that I needed to include on a summative assessment. I was challenged to think critically about how to equitably and comprehensively assess the content that I would cover in my unit. Additionally, the creation of this test developed my skills in using Google Documents to create classroom materials so that this test could be easily shared with my cooperating teacher because her school has a 1:1 Chromebook to student ratio, and she uses Google Classroom as her main landing page for all classroom materials. I also adapted the test to meet the needs of Multilingual Learners (MLL) and students with IEPs. These adaptions are mentioned in general ways on the test because I did not have any specific students who were MLLs or who had IEPs in the class that I taught. This practice in adaptions prepared me to continue to think creatively about how I can plan effectively and develop powerful adaptions to content so that all students can succeed.
edited_unit_test__roll_of_thunder_hear_my_cry.pdf |
edited_version_of_unit_test__roll_of_thunder_hear_my_cry_adaptions.pdf |
portfolio_key_for_unit_test_on_roll_of_thunder_hear_my_cry_.pdf |
portfolio_unit_test_roll_of_thunder_hear_my_cry_essay_passages_and_prompt.pdf |
portfolio_adaptions_of_unit_test_roll_of_thunder_hear_my_cry_essay_passages_and_prompt.pdf |
Domain 2: The Classroom Environment
An important part of the classroom environment is Danielson component 2b establishing a culture of learning. I have found out this semester through the different field experiences that I have participated in and the unit plans that I have taught that students love participating in gamified instruction. This gamified interaction with content creates a culture of learning in the classroom because students become actively engaged with content and with their other classmates to accomplish the goals of the game. In EDUC 316, I created a lesson where I adapted a game of Jenga for classroom purposes. The game I created is called Gralanga. The purpose of the game is to review grammar, sentence, and poetic language elements to help students practice these concepts or to serve as a comprehensive review exercise to prepare students for a summative assessment. See the instructions and key below for further details. We played this game in my college class, and everyone who participated enjoyed engaging with the game, and it was a helpful review for all of us to sharpen up on our grammar, sentence, and poetic language skills. We laughed and debated. Students were engaged in working together as a team to gain points in the game and to help each other remember important concepts. See the pictures and links below for more information.
An important part of the classroom environment is Danielson component 2b establishing a culture of learning. I have found out this semester through the different field experiences that I have participated in and the unit plans that I have taught that students love participating in gamified instruction. This gamified interaction with content creates a culture of learning in the classroom because students become actively engaged with content and with their other classmates to accomplish the goals of the game. In EDUC 316, I created a lesson where I adapted a game of Jenga for classroom purposes. The game I created is called Gralanga. The purpose of the game is to review grammar, sentence, and poetic language elements to help students practice these concepts or to serve as a comprehensive review exercise to prepare students for a summative assessment. See the instructions and key below for further details. We played this game in my college class, and everyone who participated enjoyed engaging with the game, and it was a helpful review for all of us to sharpen up on our grammar, sentence, and poetic language skills. We laughed and debated. Students were engaged in working together as a team to gain points in the game and to help each other remember important concepts. See the pictures and links below for more information.
edited_for_portfolio_grammar_review_game_lesson.pdf |
gralanga-a_grammar_and_figurative_language_version_of_jenga.pdf |
Domain 3: Instruction
I was very actively involved this semester in the domain of instruction, and I taught two eleven day lesson plans to two different groups of sixth grade students. This lesson plan is an example of one of the lessons that I taught on the novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. This particular day in class we were focused on reviewing the major events from Chapter 2 of the novel, which the students had finished reading over the weekend, and we were beginning to read Chapter 3. I also incorporated a bulletin board that I created for this unit into the lesson. The combination of my active discussion techniques to review Chapter 2 through the use of questioning, the incorporation of application questions on the bulletin board into the lesson, and the questions that I asked about Chapter 3 of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry all make this lesson a good example of component 3b using questioning and discussion techniques. I engaged the students initially in the lesson by reviewing events from Chapter 2 of the novel through the lens of independence, which was the focus of the bulletin board. I extended this discussion by reviewing the life-application questions in the third column of the bulletin board to challenge students to think critically about how the concept of independence applied to their lives. Then, we continued to review Chapter 2 through continued classroom dialogue, where I highlighted important concepts from the chapter that would be included in the comprehension questions of their Journal 2 entries, and we read Chapter 3 continuing to pause to engage with important concepts that tied into our objectives for the day, focusing on characterization and historical context, which also would help the students to prepare for their Journal 3 entries and a chart on figurative language. This lesson is also a great example of how I demonstrated flexibility and responsiveness in my teaching (component 3e). During the lesson, we were discussing who my cooperating teacher's favorite character was in the book. In this discussion, one of the students asked if the character in the book was as tall as one of the teachers in the school who is about 6'7. My cooperating teacher replied that the character was probably even taller than the teacher in their school because of the figurative language that was used to describe the character. While I was teaching, my cooperating teacher called the tall teacher in the building to confirm with the class about how tall he was so that they could have an accurate visual in their minds of what the character's height might be like. Then, a few minutes later (surprise!), the tall teacher came into our classroom to demonstrate his height in-person and then stood on a chair to indicate what the height of the character in the novel, Mr. Morrison, was. The students were totally distracted by this new guest who visited our classroom! It was definitely an event that was not in my lesson plan; however, I was able to teach responsively and use the excitement of the students, along with my cooperating teacher, to encourage students to think critically about this visit and to use it as a visual reminder of the characterization of Mr. Morrison.
I was very actively involved this semester in the domain of instruction, and I taught two eleven day lesson plans to two different groups of sixth grade students. This lesson plan is an example of one of the lessons that I taught on the novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. This particular day in class we were focused on reviewing the major events from Chapter 2 of the novel, which the students had finished reading over the weekend, and we were beginning to read Chapter 3. I also incorporated a bulletin board that I created for this unit into the lesson. The combination of my active discussion techniques to review Chapter 2 through the use of questioning, the incorporation of application questions on the bulletin board into the lesson, and the questions that I asked about Chapter 3 of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry all make this lesson a good example of component 3b using questioning and discussion techniques. I engaged the students initially in the lesson by reviewing events from Chapter 2 of the novel through the lens of independence, which was the focus of the bulletin board. I extended this discussion by reviewing the life-application questions in the third column of the bulletin board to challenge students to think critically about how the concept of independence applied to their lives. Then, we continued to review Chapter 2 through continued classroom dialogue, where I highlighted important concepts from the chapter that would be included in the comprehension questions of their Journal 2 entries, and we read Chapter 3 continuing to pause to engage with important concepts that tied into our objectives for the day, focusing on characterization and historical context, which also would help the students to prepare for their Journal 3 entries and a chart on figurative language. This lesson is also a great example of how I demonstrated flexibility and responsiveness in my teaching (component 3e). During the lesson, we were discussing who my cooperating teacher's favorite character was in the book. In this discussion, one of the students asked if the character in the book was as tall as one of the teachers in the school who is about 6'7. My cooperating teacher replied that the character was probably even taller than the teacher in their school because of the figurative language that was used to describe the character. While I was teaching, my cooperating teacher called the tall teacher in the building to confirm with the class about how tall he was so that they could have an accurate visual in their minds of what the character's height might be like. Then, a few minutes later (surprise!), the tall teacher came into our classroom to demonstrate his height in-person and then stood on a chair to indicate what the height of the character in the novel, Mr. Morrison, was. The students were totally distracted by this new guest who visited our classroom! It was definitely an event that was not in my lesson plan; however, I was able to teach responsively and use the excitement of the students, along with my cooperating teacher, to encourage students to think critically about this visit and to use it as a visual reminder of the characterization of Mr. Morrison.
rot_lesson_5.pdf |
Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities
A major step in my growth in my professional responsibilities this semester was that I had the privilege of thinking critically about and writing my teaching philosophy. Writing my teaching philosophy shows that as a future educator I am reflecting on what I want my teaching practices to look like as a whole (component 4a) and that I am growing and developing professionally (component 4e) because I am at a point in my college career where I can take my learning from my education classes and my field experiences and use it to write about how I see myself working as a professional educator and establishing a classroom of respect and rapport. Major highlights of my philosophy of teaching include creating classroom where students feel safe with one another and engage actively in intelligent dialogue about literature and how it speaks to our lives. Another important component of my philosophy of teaching is my passion for experiential learning which drives me to promote real-life experiences with the English world for my students and also to grow professionally through experiential learning by traveling to author houses and by attending English cultural events such as poetry recitations and drama productions. If you click on the link below, it will take you to the page on my portfolio where you can read my full teaching philosophy and get a sense of who I am as an professional educator.
A major step in my growth in my professional responsibilities this semester was that I had the privilege of thinking critically about and writing my teaching philosophy. Writing my teaching philosophy shows that as a future educator I am reflecting on what I want my teaching practices to look like as a whole (component 4a) and that I am growing and developing professionally (component 4e) because I am at a point in my college career where I can take my learning from my education classes and my field experiences and use it to write about how I see myself working as a professional educator and establishing a classroom of respect and rapport. Major highlights of my philosophy of teaching include creating classroom where students feel safe with one another and engage actively in intelligent dialogue about literature and how it speaks to our lives. Another important component of my philosophy of teaching is my passion for experiential learning which drives me to promote real-life experiences with the English world for my students and also to grow professionally through experiential learning by traveling to author houses and by attending English cultural events such as poetry recitations and drama productions. If you click on the link below, it will take you to the page on my portfolio where you can read my full teaching philosophy and get a sense of who I am as an professional educator.