Educators implement effective practices in areas of classroom management, planning, instruction, assessment, evaluation and reporting. Educators have the knowledge and skills to facilitate learning for all students and know when to seek additional support for their practice. Educators thoughtfully consider all aspects of teaching, from planning through reporting, and understand the relationships among them. Educators employ a variety of instructional and assessment strategies.
Evidence #1: A Proactive Classroom Management Strategy in Social Studies 10
During my spring practicum at Ladysmith Secondary School, I had the opportunity to teach a lively group of adolescents in a Social Studies 10 classroom. During the practicum, students learned about transforming Canadian identity during the Cold War (1945-1991). Students earned ‘rocket’ tokens through a variety of class activities such as creating a ‘news clip’ of the Suez Canal Crisis, forming class jigsaw groups, creating a historical perspective memo of the Cuban Missile Crisis, completing a web quest of the Vietnam War, creating brochures highlighting the 1969 White Papers, and completing posters and presentations related to the development of Canadian identity during the Cold War.
In order to utilize Vygotsky’s theory that adolescents are social learners, I had the students divide themselves into groups of 3-4 for the five weeks of the practicum. Students had their own “Cold War” in which they earned paper rocket tokens for positive classroom behaviors such as responsible use of mobile devices, participating fully in think-pair-share dialogues, handing in assignments in a timely manner, or simply by being respectful and engaged learners. During this scenario, students actively competed against other groups, garnered a friendly ‘rivalry’ with competing peers, and willingly engaged in my chosen classroom model. The winning team with the most ‘rockets’ received honour and glory, the opportunity to personally choose the class snacks for our practicum party, and won the privilege of throwing four pails of water on my head.
My experience in my Social Studies 10 classroom has taught me the importance of proactive classroom management and creating fun, safe, constructively social, and inclusive spaces for adolescents to learn. It has also taught me how important it is to have a wide, differentiated variety of instructional and assessment strategies to engage the unique interests and learning styles of my students, and to adapt my strategies and methods to their particular needs. I also learned how important it is to create clear rubrics in order to provide students and parents with relevant feedback, and challenged myself to use Google Classroom, Freshgrade, and personal phone calls multiple times through the practicum. This experience taught me how important TRB Standard 5 is for those in the profession – it is crucial to have a wide variety of reporting and assessment strategies in order to engage and serve unique learners and parents.
My unique classroom management experience in Social Studies 10 is the right one for TRB Standard 5 because it represents my commitment to having a wide variety of instructional and assessment strategies, my commitment to proactive classroom management, and my commitment to addressing the unique learning styles and social needs of my students. Our classroom culture was fun and positive. Work came in on time. The positive vibe in the room was almost palpable, and set the stage for personal relationships with students to flourish. It nearly brought tears to my eyes when several students said to me that my classroom ‘Cold War’ was one of the best learning experiences they had ever had, and that my positive presence in the room made them want to come to class each day.
Through this proactive classroom management strategy, I learned how important it is to bring an authentic element of joy to the classroom, to provide scaffolded and social learning experiences for students, and to provide a wide variety of instructional and assessment strategies to my students. TRB Standard 5 ensures that students of various learning styles have every opportunity for success, and also helps to create well-rounded, challenging, and nuanced learning experiences. In my particular case, the safe, inclusive space of our classroom created a margin for students to feel comfortable with new learning strategies.
TRB Standard 5 is important to my practice because it recognizes the intricate relationships between all aspects of teaching, from planning, to instruction and classroom management, to assessment, to evaluation and reporting. TRB Standard 5 reflects the understanding that no aspect of teaching can exist on its own. All aspects of teaching are interwoven for the benefit of students. As I continue to grow as a teacher, I will continue to fine-tune and develop my reporting practices, particularly as they concern interactions with parents, learning more about Freshgrade, and putting thoughtful care into the report cards of my students. I will also make changes to my planning and instructional strategies as I continually evaluate the unique needs of students and the results of my practice. TRB Standard 5 has taught me how important it is to put students ahead of agendas or planning, and to adapt instructional and assessment strategies to their unique needs. It has also taught me how important it is to continually improve my skill set as an educator, and to reach out for outside help with students as needed.
Evidence #2: Varied Instructional and Assessment Practices in Creative Writing 10
For my English 10 Creative Writing class at Ladysmith Secondary School, I designed and implemented a ghost stories unit. During the unit, students read through a number of classic and Indigenous ghost stories, learned about textual inferences, foreshadowing, characterization, and the importance of setting, and took the time to complete a number of varied writing assignments. These assignments included writing a persuasive newspaper article, creating and performing an adapted script, writing a personal memoir, and creating a suspenseful ghost story. This wide variety of assignments meant that students were given the opportunity to create projects that were personally meaningful to them. It also meant that I created a number of varied rubrics for accurately assessing the array of projects. Finally, I employed a variety of instructional strategies to engage my reluctant writers, such as the creation of my “ghost stories plot generator,” kinesthetic story starters, and visual literacy activities.
My experience engaging my reluctant writers with a variety of assignments has taught me how important it is to employ a variety of instructional and assessment strategies. No two learners are exactly the same, and TRB Standard 5 has taught me how important it is to diversify my instructional and assessment strategies to engage all students in my classroom. Allowing students personalized, free choice whenever possible, combined with clear assessment strategies that are easy for students to understand will help ensure positive outcomes for my learners. My English 10 ghost stories unit, with its varied rubrics and instructional strategies, is the right evidence piece for TRB Standard 5 because it represents my commitment to diversifying learning experiences for my students, providing engaging, personalized assignments, and providing clear feedback and assessment to students and their families. My ghost stories unit is strong because of the personalized assignments, the development of my students’ critical and creative thinking skills, and the abundance of structured feedback I offered on each rubric I submitted to students on Google Classroom and Freshgrade. In addition, these assessment practices represent my commitment to TRB Standard 5 because I carefully worked with individual students to personalize the projects to their needs, made adaptations to my assessments to suit their IEPs, and permitted students to resubmit work under a mastery learning model. Although this was a time-consuming process, it gave me a lot of satisfaction to see some of my struggling learners thrive with the personalized material. Through creating, implementing, and assessing my ghost stories unit, I learned how interconnected planning, management, and assessment truly are. I also learned how important it is to adapt assignments and material to the personalized interests and abilities of each student. TRB Standard 5 is important to my teaching practice because it articulates the interconnected nature of planning, management, implementing, and assessment. This interconnected web is directly in line with the core competency model in which students “know,” “do,” and “understand.” Through effective practices, teachers can instill the deep critical and creative thinking skills needed for students to thrive and live personally meaningful lives. As I continue to grow as a teacher, I know that I will continually commit myself to meeting the specialized needs of individual students, and will strive to create experiences in which students are given autonomy over their own learning. TRB Standard 5 has impacted my attitudes regarding teaching and learning because it reminds me that I will continually reflect on my practices and classroom experiences, fine-tune lesson plans, and create opportunities for deep and meaningful learning to occur for each student.