REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONER
"Effective urban educators are Reflective Practitioners who can accurately assess themselves and develop plans for improvement."
My greatest moments of reflection take place as a lesson concludes. It is in those concluding instances when I can acknowledge whether or not the objective of a lesson was met and thus if the standard was addressed. It is important to make a mental note if the lesson was successful or not. This way I can better prepare for how I should approach the next day. If students are unable to meet the objective, then one must make revisions and do a review in the future lesson.
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Reflection is a valuable and necessary part of teaching. This can be said for the classroom setting or a tutoring session. After each tutor session, I would write down what the student struggled with in order to remember to properly address it in the next session.
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Having documentation of the reflection processes for each student/lesson is a great way to keep track of who needs assistance where. This can include your own notes, student classwork, assessments, and projects. Keeping track of such documents will better serve the student since one can look back on work to make proper differentiation for the student.
Reflection Example #1
Excel sheet screenshot showing one week of keeping track of student likes as well as any missing work.
Whether I am private tutoring one student or in a classroom of twenty-eight I always create a list of my students' likes and dislikes.
When tutoring I typically have a whole notebook page dedicated to this student. The more I learn about them the more the page is filled up. This can be anything from their love of certain dance groups to the need to focus on certain math skills. By including the non-academic likes I can ensure that when I make lessons tailored to them. For example, I ended up making a whole letter association lesson based on paper airplanes because I knew it would best engage my student.
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When keeping track of a whole class of students I make a spreadsheet, such as the one on the left. As I learn about the students I add it to the column with their names. This is also a great way for me to keep track of any missing work.
Reflection Example #2
My pre-student teaching experience has brought me to Ms. Hasansphic's third-grade classroom. Taking over the social studies subject has only reaffirmed my wish to continue pursuing teaching.
A part of this involvement in the classroom is putting together lesson plans and having a written reflection on them after the lesson takes place. An example of such a lesson is provided to the left with the lesson objective/product below.
This specific lesson had students categorize natural resources. It was successful in the sense that they created their posters and could list the natural resources. While the cut/paste took up more time, than expected it is an important part of hand-eye coordination and engagement. For the future the time difference would need to be taken into consideration.
