Teacher Artifact

As teacher’s we are committing to a life time of learning and development of ourselves and our learners.

Reflection means if when you are teaching and you notice something wrong you change it straight away, or for the next time. Practitioners should always be self critical of past lessons and picking out on not only the good parts, but also parts of a lesson that didn’t go so well. For example in order for the practitioners to improve in their practice they could prepare a reflective journal, this would help them by reflecting back on what they did in the perivious lesson and if an activity didn’t go so well the practitioner could think of different strategies of improving the activity or planning a different activity, but on the similar topic and also providing different recourses in order to improve the activity. Also practitioners and staff members should not assume that their work place will automatically inform them about new developments, changes and updates which affect their work, practitioners must be prepared to be active in maintaining their own knowledge base and to ensure that their practice is in line with current thinking and new theories. Practitioners could this by incorporating an awareness of the needs to update their knowledge constantly into all of their work and activities by using resources such as the internet, journals, and libraries or other professional development, e.g. training, and to check their awareness of new developments in their work and to work with other professionals e.g. there

This artifact represents my ability to work collaboratively with one of my peers. We created the provided lesson and then taught the lesson at North Schuylkill Elementary school to a class of kindergarteners. This experience requires use to co-teach, co-plan and co-reflect to make sure this experience was as successful as possible. This artifact fits under standard #10: leadership and collaboration, since it demonstrates how I worked collaboratively with a peer to create and administer a lesson. By working together, we were able to ensure that each learner in the classroom would learn the necessary content. This is a representation of my best work since the lesson and activities my partner and I created were very well written and helped guide

This artifact addresses both standards six and seven in the artifact in several ways. Both communication and classroom management are interrelated because communication is the driving force for maintaining an effective classroom. In my 5th grade placement I realized very quickly how important communication was. If I didn’t specifically tell students what to do or repeat my instructions, I would have confusion with a handful of students in each class. This artifact is a lot more of an extensive lesson plan than my 8th grade lessons because transitions and expected behavior is a more significant issue in these grades. For example, when I had had students turn to a partner and discuss a questions, I had to go around the classroom and make sure

Starting with Week 1 of my Field Observation in Ms. F’s 2nd grade classroom, there were certain behavioral regulations that Ms. F’s demanded to be met by students. You can see in the above picture that there is a small chart of what respect means and her classroom expectations. My artifact is not the chart pictured above, but rather a website that the teachers at Valerie use to not only promote good behavior but constructively punish unruly behavior. This website is known as Class Dojo. Class Dojo is a website that allowed Ms. F to register all of her students, along with their parents, in an effort to regulate behavior. Points are rewarded for good behavior, like following the rules, sitting quietly, or working on

Throughout this piece of writing I am going to "critically discuss the assertion that teachers themselves, are their own most important resource when it comes to the development of their professional expertise." When evaluating this claim I will address a number of topics including reflective practice, professional expertise and the correlation between them; as well as this I will refer back to the GTCNI framework and what it has to say about teacher effectiveness and the variety of tools that teachers use in order to be successful. I am going to talk about the key theorists who brought about the idea of reflective practice, such as Dewy and Schon, and I will also outline the different models of reflective practice that are in existence today. Although reflective practice is generally deemed a positive approach, I will talk about possible complications or drawbacks that can be associated with it. As a whole, this essay will evaluate how reflective practice helps teachers to develop their competence and professional expertise, and it will assess other methods and tools which teachers incorporate in order to be successful, in comparison to reflective practice.

“Creating a profession of teaching in which teachers have the opportunity for continual learning is the likeliest way to inspire greater achievement for children, especially those for whom education is the only pathway to survival and success” (Sumner, 2011, p. 10). Educators today are required to have a different set of skills to effectively prepare students to be global competitors in the workplace. Educators cannot make these alterations in teaching methodology and instructional delivery without support. Coaches support and encourage teachers, improve teacher strategies, promote teacher reflection, and focus on desired outcomes (Sumner, 2011). A key

It has now come to my understanding that as a trainee teacher, it is vital that I become a reflective practitioner when fostering the role of a teacher. In support of this, Tripp (2012, p.12) adds that being reflective is an ‘essential’ part of the ‘development of professional judgement’. He continues to state that one must be able to examine and critique their teaching to build on their own professional values and ideas.

“The most distinctive characteristic of these very good teachers is that their practice is the result of careful reflection... They themselves also learn lessons each time they teach, evaluating what they do and using these self-critical evaluations to adjust what they do next time.” (Why Colleges Succeed, Ofsted, Paragraph 19). This excerpt from a paper published by Ofsted resonates with me and I feel it explains the concept of and outlines the importance of reflective teaching well.

Russell (2013) discusses the education of student teachers in depth, and supports Hebert’s idea (2015) that reflections must be taught in conjunction with practical experience and that the two must be connected in order to lead the student to a higher level of understanding about their teaching.

Reflections and thoughtfulness about professional growth and instruction has become a part of my everyday routine while I have been student teaching. After each day, I take time to think about how the lessons for the day went and what I could do to improve as a teacher. Also, I get feedback from my mentor teacher and the co-teacher in the classroom on things that they noticed that I could improve on. I have a journal that I use to write down how the day went. In my journal I not only wrote down things that I need to work on, but also things that went worked and went well.

classroom and to think about why you do it, is not always an easy task or something that comes natural to all people. The process involves self-observation and self-evaluation, which at times can be very difficult to do and can be difficult to do correctly. However, if a teacher will take the time to continually practice reflective teaching, the teacher will be able to identify underlying beliefs, which can then lead to positive changes and improvements in his or her own teaching. Therefore, for me reflective teaching is my own personalized professional development.

Learning to self-reflect sets the student teacher up for future self-reflecting. Self-reflecting means self-improving, which, according to Higgens-D 'Alessandro, 2002, "ensures the intellectual, social, and personal development of children and youth." Teachers at any experience level and in any content area can benefit from thinking and reflecting upon their teaching and any problems they are experiencing (Schiller, 1992).

When a new concept is introduced, it needs to be reconciled with our previous ideas and experience. We may need to change what we believe, but in any case, as educators we need to remain receptive acceptors of new ideas and enhance our own knowledge. To do this, we must ask questions, explore, and assess our shared similar experiences, as we observe each other and discuss teaching methodologies. This type of inquiry helps us improve by strengthening connections among us, the educators. We are encouraged to create stimulating discussions about our professional practices, thereby, building on one another’s expertise. To discover solutions and address the needs of our students, we need continuous inquiry and contemplative dialogue.

One of the greatest aspects of teaching is having the opportunity to engage with students. Engaging in the practice requires that teachers are constantly reflecting and wondering how they can better enhance their performance. This is often done through reflecting on past lessons as well as actively seeking appropriate leadership roles and opportunities. Effective teachers are master reflectors who always understand how their actions contribute to the success of their students, their families and their communities. Effective teachers are also sure that they are using their reflections and new knowledge to inform their practice. In addition to reflecting on their own practice, new teachers are always reading to collaborate with superiors or colleagues in order to gain new and innovative information.