Professional Knowledge and Growth Overview:
Throughout my student teaching semester I have sought actively to elicit advise from my mentor teacher and from my colleagues. I have benefited especially from numerous conversations with teachers in various disciplines, but most of all from the thoughtful guidance of my mentor.
I have integrated theory into my practice by adopting pedagogical strategies we have studied in our Analysis of Student Teaching class, and my reading professional journals. I have been especially attentive to articles related to critical thinking, assessment, and debate in conducting research for my Personal Inquiry Project on the use of classroom debate to create enduring student understanding and as a form of performance assessment.
I have explored multiple and varied instructional techniques and employed technology regularly in my classroom. In addition, I have taken responsibility for my own professional development by participating in workshops and faculty meetings, such as the professional development seminar on assessment. (Pictured above is my certificate from the Fall River Public Schools for having attended a six hour professional development seminar on assessment).
Reflection One: Personal Inquiry Project
The Personal Inquiry Project (PIP) gave me the opportunity to become an expert on one particular aspect of my pedagogy by integrating academic and classroom-based research. The topic of my PIP was using classroom debate to create enduring student understanding and as a form of performance assessment. My secondary question dealt with the ways in which debate forced students to evaluate multiple and competing perspectives on the past in a Social Studies classroom. I found debate to be a highly successful and underused teaching tool at the secondary level. As you will see in the data presented in the Power Point below, students on average performed better on exam questions pertaining to topics we had debated, indicating that it can be used to create lasting student understandings. The qualitative data from the short essay questions was similarly impressive, and students consistently demonstrated higher order thinking and the ability to evaluate multiple perspectives.
Please click the link below to view my PIP Power Point presentation, the first artifact demonstrating profecience in meeting Standard Six:
Reflection Two: Mentor Teacher’s Evaluation
One of the most remarkable aspects of my student teaching was the close relationship with my mentor teacher. Not only did she observe me everyday, she also took the time to debrief lessons, co-plan, and discuss any and all issues as they arose. Her weekly written observations were invariably insightful and extremely helpful. I am extremely grateful to her for everything she has taught me.
Please click the link below to view my mentor teacher’s final evaluation of my student teaching performance, the second artifact demonstrating proficiency in meeting Standard Six:
Mentor Teacher Final Evaluation of Benjamin Weber.pdf
Reflection Three: Self-Evaluation
I have learned that self-reflection is essential to good teaching. Although I wrote written reflections on my lesson plans at the end of each lesson, the opportunity to write a longer self-evaluation on my progress in meeting the Brown Practice Based Standards forced me to look more holistically at my pedagogy. I believe that as teachers we are also continuous learners, and I have sought to modify and improve my teaching through self-reflection. If a lesson did not go as well as I had hoped, my first reaction was not to find fault with my students but to ask what I could have done differently in order better to reach them.
Please click the link below to view my self-evaluation, the third artifact demonstrating proficiency in meeting Standard Six:
Benjamin Weber Student Teaching Self Assessment.pdf
Benjamin Weber: Mid-Term Self Assessment on Striving to Meet the Brown University MAT Program’s Practice-Based Standards for Beginning Teachers
Standard Six: Professional Knowledge and Growth
I believe that I am meeting this standard. I take full responsibility for my lessons and for my students’ learning, often being very self-critical if students did not accomplish a specific learning objective or if they did not excel on a particular assessment. I have actively sought out advice from my mentor teacher and my other colleagues and incorporated materials from my university course work both in education and in my subject area. The theories of teaching and learning have very much informed my practice, and I continue to read academic articles in the field of educational psychology and school reform. I subscribe to a publication by the organization called Rethinking Schools and take every opportunity to engage with professors, teachers, and students about the questions of equity, social justice, and school curricula and politics. I have explored new instructional strategies and incorporated resources from my analysis of teaching course into my classroom. In fact, just a few days ago I used a “GIST” activity to help students access written text and pull out main ideas which I adapted from material distributed in our analysis class on ELL students. I have not consistently read a discipline-specific teachers journal, but plan to in the immediate future. I have participated in professional development activities, including a workshop on assessment at my student teaching placement. I try always to seek out, accept, and appreciate criticisms of my practice.
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