My Portfolio Artifact

As I have grown as a professional particularly over the past four years working with gifted learners, I recognize many lessons learned to improve my practice. My approach is less teacher directed and more student led blocks. I start with a brief mini-lesson for the topic of the day giving a few tips (as you can see in my whole group video clip). There is a short session of guided practice during this acquiring knowledge portion of the lesson. The bulk of the time then is given to investigations where I facilitate meaning making. Providing challenging tasks that I do not solve for or with them has given new excitement to my classroom. The level of engagement has skyrocketed. Conversations among students has given opportunity to build deep understanding on pre-algebra content. I have no students in academic support and none have failed their end-of-the year testing which is amazing given the complexity of our curriculum. Across the state, the 8th grade math assessment is one of the lowest performing end of the year tests. I am confident my experiences in the reflective cohort, balanced assessment committee, and gifted course work/Praxis time investments leading to endorsements had an impact on student learning.

Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence’s (MI theory) is a valuable resource for teachers, if they understood how they could apply this in the classroom (Snowman & McCown, 2012). In this class, there are multiple intelligences observed amongst the students; however, there is minimal differentiated instruction to allow the students the best opportunities for success. It is critical that teachers understand that their teaching methods may not be wrong, but they

Teachers and parents have dedicated their time to tell children that they are smart and talented every time they get a good grade. Praising children this type of way has had an impact on their lives. Dweck said “many students believe that intelligence is fixed, that each person has certain amount and that’s that”. Students with fixed mindset only care about how smart they look or how smart they appear. By having this fix mindset, they turn down the ability to learn new things. They believe that if you study hard, you are not smart enough, and that if you were smart things will come to you with no effort. This has made students lose their belief in oneself when they face complicated circumstance. Dweck says that the reason for kids to have a fixed mindset is “intelligence

Results of Mentor Teacher Discussions: Again we discussed the importance of seeing student’s strong points. Every kid is different in what they are good at. Good teachers notice what kids are good at and help them thrive even more.

My first artifact is the American Flag. The American flag is red,white,and blue. On the blue part there are 50 stars on it, each one represents a state. There are red and white stripes beside the blue part. This is important to me because I love my country and I would do anything to protect it. Another reason I chose it is the flag gave me my freedom and if it were not for that flag we would have monarchy instead on democracy.

During my time at Wyoming Public Schools so far I have had the opportunity to meet literally hundreds of students in the context of a music classroom. It has been a pleasant and unique opportunity. One student in particular comes to mind when thinking of a student who could use and individualized plan for success. His name is Osiris. Osiris has trouble comprehending the concept of consequences. His initial distracting behavior is not necessarily more or less severe than the average first grader, however his reaction to the consequences is often severe and distracting. For instance, when he was told he had to move to a new seat because he was distracting his classmates, he said no and refused to move. We ended up taking him in the hall so he

In “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids” the author Carol Dweck says “Our society worships talent” (10). This is followed by the statements of one of the central beliefs of the article that there are two different kinds of learners. These two types are said to be those with a fixed mind-set and those with a growth mind-set. Throughout the article many examples are used by the author of studies and or experiments on student with fixed and growth mind sets.

At this academy, there would be a variety of skills for each intelligence that would be available to students. Some of the musical skills are songwriting/composing, music theory, singing, teaching, and playing an instrument(s). Some career paths that correlate with these skills include a musician, songwriter/composer, singer, music teacher, and a musical therapist. Some of the language skills are writing, speaking a foreign language, reading, public speaking, and teaching. Some of the jobs that correlate with these skills are an author/writer/journalist, translator, editor, motivational/public speaker, english/language/public speaking teacher. Our school provides many classes such as a music theory course, singing lessons, musical instrument

There are number of projects that I could include in my professional portfolio, but I have narrowed it down to three artifacts that I think would stand out. The first artifact that I choose is DD report, which I conducted in intro to motor behaviors class, the second piece is a fact sheet epidemiology and the third piece is a virtual child project from developmental psychology. The reason why I am choosing each of these is because they all are from different departments and areas of study. One project is from my major class, one is from my minor and the last one is from an elective class.

From a young age I had focused a lot on my future education. There was a string of different careers I wanted to pursue like being a doctor, a teacher, a musician, and a vet. It was changing almost every week. However, as I got older and focused more on my music, key characteristics in my education were changing. I no longer had to work as hard to concentrate on learning or memorizing something and I never really had issues when it came to working within groups on assignments for school. Everything seemed to come so much easier to me.

With my strengths come weaknesses as well and as they say we are our own worse critics. My weaknesses are implicating discipline and managing volume levels. With discipline I am getting better, however I am still hesitate when it comes to things like that because I do want the students to see me as someone that they like—however I understand that I need to be their teacher, not their friend. I also added volume levels because I am use to loud environments and sometimes I am just not exactly sure what is too loud. This will of course change during the year

Artifacts comes in so many different shapes or form. It could hold personal memories, feelings, or even value. The artifact I chose to share is my necklace.

Psychologist Carol Dweck found that students perform better if they believe that they are intelligent “you can always greatly change how intelligent you are” than if they think “you have a certain amount of intelligence, and you really can’t do much to change it.” She also believes that when a student has a positive attitude, it makes them push themselves harder when others would desist. She believes that there is no limit on their learning potential and challenge is viewed as a way to improve themselves. ” They know that their intelligence can be built through experience and effort, and are not held back by the idea of inborn restrictions.”1

I have been playing the piano for about 3-4 years now, so it has affected my life a lot. First, I was questioning taking a musical instrument because I knew it would take a lot of persistence, time, and effort. On the other hand, I knew I would learn to play music that I loved. My parents and I came to a conclusion, and that was that I was going to take the piano at Minton’s Academy of Music. I started off fine, but we didn’t notice any improvement. So we switched teachers, and how I learned changed dramatically. I went from struggling to read simple notes from sightreading songs almost the moment I saw them. Why does this matter, and why should you believe you will see the same results I did? Well, by participating in a music class I’ve learned the skill of perseverance. If I didn’t get a song, I would practice over and over again for weeks and months; I learned it is definitely worth the immense effort. It has had an influence over other subjects and activities I participate in too, such as math, science, and even swimming! Music has taught me to be patient,

Students intelligence is more than a test score taken once a year under extreme pressure. Teachers, educators, and faculty members prepare lesson plans months ahead of time, based solely on the material tested for on the standardized testing for that year. They rarely get to stop and check if the students are understanding the material instead of memorizing it. During my sixth-grade year, my english class was taught based only on how to pass the upcoming S.T.A.A.R. (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) tests. Specifically, the teacher taught how to read passages and pick out information to get the right answer. When a student struggled with the understanding of why an answer was right, the