Third Blog Inquiry Celebration

This years inquiry celebration was a very good learning experience for next semester. I went to one session which included three social studies interns.The presenters that I saw demonstrated very good action research, and their presentations were authentic and showed successful research outcomes. Their action research was on differentiating assessment. I have learned that I need to make differentating assessments a part of my classroom in the future. Incorporating this into my classroom would be very beneficial. I will use some of the techniques and stratergies that I have learned for my action research.

Blog 2 Spring 2012: Two Artifacts Connecting to Two Characteristics

Characteristic 1  "We believe that the novice teacher should have a commitment to and skills for life-long learning."

To me this is a very key characteristic that teachers must acquire.  Learning must go beyond the basic knowledge of content within your specific subject area.  For teachers to develop a commitment for learning they need to understand the importance of learning and convey this idea to their students.  A teacher needs to instill the value of learning within the students through his or her instruction.   

The artifact I would select to demonstrate my commitment to and skills for life-long learning would be a citizenship lesson I taught this semester.  I feel this lesson demonstrates a skill that I will use through out my entire life.  Citizenship is an area in my life that I will continue to improve on and learn new ways to better myself as a citizen.  With the high regard I have for being a model citizen, I want to impress upon my own students the importance of this in today's society.      

                                                                                                                                               

Characteristic 2 "We believe that the novice teacher should be an effective communicator."

 

An effective communicator has the ability to successfully relay knowledge and information to individuals.  Effectively communicating with students demonstrates the relationships and community you have built in the classroom. 

 

The artifact I would use to demonstrate being an effective communicator is the assignment I completed for my Education 401 class which was a Parent Outreach assignment.  This assignment demonstrated my ability to successfully communicate with parents about my expectations for their children.  Open communication among parent, student, and teacher is essential to having an exemplary classroom.  The assignment allowed me to do just that by establishing communication lines at the beginning of the year.

 

 

Blog 1 Spring 2012: Two Artifacts Connecting to Two Characteristics

The First artifact I will discuss relates to Characteristic #10: we believe that the novice teacher should be liberally educated.  In Economic Geography during my tutor year, one significant project my class was assigned for the semester was to create a commodity chain.  A commodity chain represents the stages of production or the changing of hands that a product or good must go through to rewind up in a particular place.  For the assignment I made a PowerPoint slide that was projected on to the wall like a giant poster.  In my slide or commodity chain I demonstrated how beef cattle change hands numerous times before ending up in the grocery store for consumer purchase.  As part of grade for the assignment I had to present my commodity chain to the class and explain the different stages.  For the project I received a perfect score of 50/50 for both the poster and the presentation.  Everyone in the class seemed to enjoy my commodity chain which made me feel very proud of the work I had done.

The Second artifact I will describe corresponds to Characteristic #6: we believe that the novice teacher should have in-depth knowledge of content. During my History 456: Appalachia Regional History class there were five quizzes throughout the semester.  My professor Kenneth Fones-Wolf brought to our attention that he was going to replace the midterm and final exams with these five quizzes.  The quizzes would serve as smaller tests to check our understanding of the content more often.  One particular quiz in the class everyone seemed to struggle on, but I did extremely well.  I earned a 104 out of 100 on the quiz and felt very proud of myself. This was after Professor Fones-Wolf had given five extra bonus points because he thought the material we had covered was so difficult.  I would later receive an A in the class for the semester.