End-of-Summer Evaluation

MAT Candidate: Gregory Stewart

Mentor: Elena Maker

Brown MAT,  Summer 2017

Introduction

This summer Gregory and his co-teacher taught a heterogeneously mixed-level class of current and rising high school students.  Their unit was developed around two essential questions:

1. What moves people to take civic action and fight for change in their societies?
2. In what ways have different ideas and understandings about freedom, justice and struggle shaped and influenced movements for social change?

The class grappled with the histories that created the conditions Latinx social movements have organized against. They started with an examination of students’ identities and rights in the classroom, and then worked outward to the ideas of dominant and counternarratives as well as the concepts of citizenship and rights in larger society.  By examining the history of Manifest Destiny, the U.S.-Mexico War, and U.S. Intervention, they were able to contextualize the conditions that the United Farm Workers and DREAMer movements arose from. They explored how social movements work, analyzing different resistance strategies the United Farm Workers and the DREAMer movements used. They culminated the course by encouraging students to take actions of their own.

Standard One: Roles and Relationships

Greg is always patient, kind, and respectful of his students’ learning needs. Greg most often starts class by taking time to check in with students individually. Greg continues to engage one-on-one with students throughout class. He will get down to their level, sit with them, and modulate the level of his voice appropriately for speaking to either the whole class or to one individual.  You can often find him smiling, encouraging, helping, and calming moving from student to student.

His approach helps him to be particularly keen to each individual student’s needs, as well as the overall dynamic and climate of the class. Over the course of the summer, Greg experimented with different student-centered activities to facilitate the growth of a positive classroom dynamic. He worked on finding ways to encourage students to share their prior knowledge so that the classroom climate would become one of active engagement and excitement for learning.

In Brown Summer High School, Greg and his co-teacher began his unit by creating a classroom constitution. They solicited student voice and created a safe and secure learning environment from day one. They did not stop there, however. They also, on the second day, taught students about microaggressions and the impact our words can have on others. They asked everyone in the classroom to take a “microaggression free-zone” pledge.  By the second week of class, students were comfortable naming comments as microaggressions and talking about them as a class. This is one way in which Greg and his co-teacher not only expressed their concern about but also took action on stereotypical references to gender, race, culture, disability, and sexual orientation.

When they noticed that the label of microaggression may have been misused in class, Greg took the lead in providing a responsive review activity. In his words from his lesson plan: “You guys have been doing an awesome job calling out microaggressions in the class.  But I think it’s time to revisit the definition of microaggression so that we’re all on the same page.  We’re going to read an article about Indigenous Americans that discusses the difference between stereotypes, racism and microaggressions”. Greg then continued to address these issues through content that provided examples of resistance to oppression, challenged dominant narratives, and encouraged students to themselves resist and challenge.

Mid-way through BSHS we discussed how Greg and his partner are able to encourage students to become independent, responsible citizens in the classroom who can successfully carry out assigned tasks. They achieved this standard through providing the proper scaffolds in their assignments and questioning so that students understood what they were supposed to achieve and how to achieve it.

When students needed redirection, Gregory was always tactful in his approach. He would either talk to the student very quietly, give a reminder to the whole class so that no student was signaled out, or affirm the students who were on task so others wanted to follow.

Expectations of students

Greg understands the need for clear directions and modeling. Through the summer, Greg worked on his ability to gather students’ attention when needed, generally through a “clap if you can hear me” method. He also practiced explaining directions and model desired behaviors before asking students to engage in activities. He worked to foster cooperation among students with thoughtful grouping and constant check-ins to help students on the right track.

Greg expressed his high expectations for students through his questioning. He often pushed students on their thinking, demonstrating that he cared about what they were saying and thinking. Greg offered students rigorous assessments through project-based learning such as small group presentations and poster creations. These assessments encouraged students to take responsibility of their own learning by instructing them to include their personal interpretation of content and remain on track with graphic organizers and clear directions.

Another way in which Greg demonstrated his high expectations for students was in the way in which he involved students in class. Greg was not shy and would often cold-call a student or encourage new students to share their ideas. Greg worked closely with a rather aloof student and coaxed her to begin sharing more in class. Greg’s efforts paid off; this particular student had terrific ideas to share with the group and the whole class benefited from Greg’s efforts.

Greg also developed his ability to orchestrate materials and the physical space in such a way that encouraged active engagement and student-centered learning. In the second week of BSHS, Greg facilitated an activity in which students were set-up in heterogeneous groups of 3 to read about the Mexican-American War and answer comprehension questions. During the activity, students could be found discussing, sharing personal stories that related to the text, and even collaborating bilingually to fully comprehend and articulate information. Greg learned from this experience and went on to pursue different grouping structures and more practice in chunking out directions.

Greg was always prepared for class. He was thoughtful and intentional in his use of materials and planning. Greg and his co-teacher used a variety of media including podcasts, documentaries, and images. He leaves BSHS with a growing toolbox of learning activities and primary sources that represent a variety of viewpoints, contexts, and points in time.

Relationships with colleagues and the school community

Working with Greg is always a pleasure. He is focused, thoughtful, and clear about his ideas and suggestions. He collaborates productively with his co-teacher and has very positive interactions with all community members. As Greg grows as a teacher, I believe it will be easy for him to carry his collaborative qualities into work with the larger community; I encourage Greg to seek community partners and local resources as he begins his student-teaching.

Greg understands that his students deserve just as much respect as his professional bosses. Greg always followed BSHS protocol and worked seamlessly in his professional setting. As a professional, I would liken Gregory to an anchor; his calm and collected demeanor always settles those around him and encourages a productive and intentional work environment.

At Brown Summer High School Gregory and his co-teacher led a Friends and Family night. He reflected that he enjoyed meeting parents and learning more about the contexts of his students’ lives. He was able to use this information in later discussions about the socio-emotional well-being of one of his students.

Standard Two: Student as Learner

Greg was the first to know student names in the class. As aforementioned, Greg is very in tune with the students in his classroom.

Greg and his co-teacher began Brown Summer High School by working to learn more about their students’ identities and experiences. They conducted a survey on the first day of school to gain background knowledge on their students. They also facilitated an identity map activity to help everyone learn more about each.

They simultaneously worked to learn about students’ content knowledge before commencing with their history curriculum. On the first day they conducted a “rapid fire response” activity where students were able to share their knowledge on a variety of topics that would be covered in BSHS. Throughout the unit they would continue to ask students what they knew about certain topics before delving into instruction.

In the short time at BSHS, Greg did the very best he could to get to know his students. He entered the summer with the hope of building community and fear that it wouldn’t be enough time. I believe these feelings reflect Greg’s commitment to keeping students at the core of why he wants to be in the classroom. To help Greg reflect on what they knew and didn’t know about students, I suggested that he create a record of knowledge on their students as people and of people as students. Greg immediately jumped on this suggestion and then later used these notes in his final narratives of student performance.

Greg began to implement strategic grouping methods for helping students collaborate and draw upon each other’s strengths in class. This work would not have been possible if Greg had not been so responsive to his students’ experiences in class. He utilized the knowledge he had on their strengths and weaknesses and appropriately paired together students who he knew could support one another.

Greg was able to challenge students appropriately. He has a strong instinct for knowing how to make content accessible and logical to students. In our daily reflections, Greg was often the one to see that at least some students hadn’t quite “gotten it” yet; he lead his team’s series of review materials so that they ensured students understood the curriculum’s narrative.

Mid-way through BSHS, Greg and his co-teacher distributed and collected a survey to check-in with how students were feeling about the class. They asked students how they felt about the materials, the activities, the classroom community, their growth as students, and about how they could best provide support for the final portion of BSHS.

Gregory also became more in tune with their students’ language usage. There were many emerging bilingual students in their classroom. He learned methods such as anticipation guides to help students enter text and vocabulary banks to help students work through difficult texts.

Greg encouraged his students to not only listen when he was speaking, but also to listen to when their peers are speaking. He modeled excellent listening skills himself. Indeed, it seems very important to Gregory that his students are respected and affirmed in the classroom.

As I said before, Greg is very adept at getting down to students’ levels and discussing ideas one on one. I encourage Greg to continue to use this approach to learn more about his students and their experiences/interests.  It is clear to me that Gregory is in the classroom because he loves working with young people.

Standard Three: Planning

Greg is concise yet thorough in his approach to planning. He is especially able to guide students in an effort to connect previous knowledge and their prior knowledge. The lessons Greg and Emily created this summer possessed clear objectives and themes. 

Greg was able to produce written lesson plans that narrated what he would say to and ask of students throughout the lesson. This map helped him to articulate the direction and purpose of each class to the students.

The lessons built on each other and spiraled back when students needed an opportunity to review. For example, he would begin a Monday lesson with an entrance ticket that reviewed what students had learned the previous Friday and share any questions they still had.

Lessons were furthermore chunked and layered so that students always experienced a range of activities and materials throughout the lesson. He included activities independently, in small groups, and whole class. For example, he created a jigsaw where students would first respond to a prompt, and then move into a small group where each student would share the response to his/her prompt. This helped the students to collaborate and have to learn material well enough to share it.

Greg’s ability to connect with young people helped him to create learning activities that accommodated different levels of prior knowledge and learning styles. He was very responsive to feedback and was constantly incorporating my feedback into his next lessons. For example, I suggested that in order to debrief content, he could begin with an entrance ticket that asked for 3 things they learned, 2 personal connections to content, and 1 question remaining. He did just that.

In developing the final project, Greg demonstrated mastery in the way in which he formatted the steps of the project. He created carefully laid out steps so that both he and the students knew if they were on target or not. He was thus able to chunk the project out so that students were guided toward their success.

As Greg moves forward in his student teaching, I encourage him to continue to incorporate multiple perspectives in the primary and secondary sources he uses. I also encourage him to seek out creative ways for students to connect to content and apply what they learn to their own lives. I contend that the more able he is to incorporate student voice, choice, and agency in his lessons, the more successful he will be.

Standard Four: Classroom Practice

Gregory used a variety of approaches to classroom pedagogy over the course of the summer. Included in their growing toolbox of activities were primary source gallery walks, listening to podcasts, playing an online game called Kahoot, a simulation of what happens when walls are made along border lines, primary source readings, documentaries, many types of graphic organizers, student small group presentations, and student-generated vocabulary posters.

Gregory successfully created small learning groups through BSHS. In the mid-term poster presentations, he incorporated both individual and group grading to hold accountable the work of each individual. Greg proved to be consistently aware of students’ abilities and social situations in the classroom. He demonstrated this awareness through his frequent use of heterogenous groups. For example, an entrance ticket one morning, Greg had differentiated the groups by reading ability, and then had a jigsaw activity where students all shared their knowledge and processed it through a synthesis activity where students had to boil down who was considered eligible for Dream Act and who is not. In his reflection later, Greg discussed how one of his groups didn’t work out, and brainstormed how to change the groups in the future. In this way, Greg shows that he’s sensitive to his responsibility to set up a learning environment where all students can be their best selves.

As Gregory experimented with different student-centered activities, he worked to facilitate the growth of a positive classroom dynamic. He sought out ways to encourage students to share their prior knowledge so that the classroom climate would become one of active engagement and excitement for learning. He also wanted to help build personal connection through his classroom pedagogy. For example, when discussing immigration and documentation, Gregory and his co-teacher both shared their personal histories with immigrant documentation, which then encouraged students to share their own stories.  Gregory and his co-teacher encouraged accountable talk through reminding students of the importance of listening to one another. He would often ask a student to repeat something if he didn’t think the whole class had heard.

Gregory also worked to create time limits, criteria, and clear directions in his activities. He would often cold-call students to repeat directions and thus hold them accountable for the directions. He also would give directions both orally and visually (either on the projector or on the board.) He was also sensitive to the students who needed extra check-ins in order to stay focused. He would include these check-ins in his lesson plan and then follow through in the lesson.

Gregory constantly impressed me with his high expectations for student participation in the class. He never shied from cold calling students to bring them into the conversation or from asking tough follow up questions that challenged students to think more deeply about content. If students were stuck, they would wait and then, if still nothing, would rephrase the question and/or encourage the student to ask their friends for help. Student generated knowledge was paramount to their classroom pedagogy.

Greg and his co-teacher also developed arcs of questions that followed Bloom’s Taxonomy. For example, in an image gallery they would first ask students to make observations of what they saw. They would then pose higher-order questions to begin to analyze those observations. Students were thus able to dive deeper and deeper into content. At the same time, they also developed their ability to differentiate curriculum. In their final project design, they included a graphic organizer with sentence starters and a clear outline format so that students with IEPs and slower processing time could still demonstrate their knowledge and successful in the assignment. They also worked with leveled readings and pre-defined vocabulary in texts.

Throughout BSHS students were constantly asked to read, write, annotate, present, and listen to one another in an effort to analyze the world around them and consider why the world is the way it is.

As Gregory moves forward in his teaching, he can explore more methods for fostering spirited classroom discussions through offering counter examples, prompting connections to students’ lived experiences, and posing provocative questions. He can also consider methods for developing student inquiry and question-driven assignments where students pose and pursue their own questions.

Greg works to make sure all of his students are on track. He often uses “clap if you can hear me”, “thumbs up/thumbs down”, and cold calling to make sure students are listening to the speaker and that they understand what is going on. These small comprehension checks help him see what is and is not being digested by his students.

Greg is becoming more adept at modeling. For example, before reading a primary source, he modeled how reading strategies to help him with the reading. In the following lesson, he asked students to review the strategies before embarking on another primary source document. He can continue to consider and then model what he wants students to produce prior to introducing the activity. He can also transition from teacher modeling to student modeling, where students who remember the lesson can model the strategies to their peers.

Gregory has demonstrated that he can assess the objective at the conclusion of class. He has made strides in this direction. For example, he could confidently say at the end of a lesson on the DREAM act that students were able to understand who was and was not included in the act. He achieved the objective through careful building of materials. First, students analyzed the primary source, the Dream Act. Then, they worked in small groups to debrief. Finally, after a whole-class discussion, students internalized and applied their learning through writing letters to Congress to give them their opinions of the Dream Act.

In sum, Greg possesses the instincts of a natural teacher whose pedagogy includes a range of activities, questions, grouping, and skills taught. He is well on his way to creating a highly productive and authentically engaged classroom.

Standard Five: Assessment

Through his short time at BSHS Gregory employed a variety of assessments. Informal assessments include exit tickets, graphic organizers, cold calling, and comprehension questions. More formal assessments took the form of presentations, short essays, and posters.

Gregory and his co-teacher conceived assessment as an opportunity for student growth. For example, students were asked to write a short essay on Manifest Destiny. This essay was submitted and then returned with feedback on how to improve. The teachers thus saw assessment as an on-going process in which students are asked to reflect and improve, rather than simply accept a given grade. Moreover, as mentioned elsewhere in this narrative, They asked students to reflect on their own progress and development mid-way through the summer.

Gregory and his co-teacher created a recorded series of grades. They also developed a comprehensive rubric for their mid-term student presentation assessment. Students were told prior to the project how they would be graded. The presentations were not just to demonstrate knowledge, they were also to teach their peers, true to a jigsaw format.

Greg often used his ability to informally assess how the class was progressing through student check-ins and observation to help his team spiral back to concepts that were not fully understood the first time around.

Gregory and his co-teacher built a summative assessment that asked students to create their own social movement. Students were asked to address a series of questions about their movement, and then produce a creative poster that represented their movement in a way they deemed appropriate. The teachers were able to honor the important aspect of student choice in their final assessment.

As Gregory moves forward, he can continue to explore creative and performance based methods for assessing students and encouraging them to apply knowledge to their own contexts as well as create their own meanings. Greg has already made progress in this area. Upon my suggestion, Greg facilitated a creative response poster activity where students were encouraged to illustrate, make poems, and use symbols to represent key vocabulary words. Assessments such as these can help Greg to see what his students are internalizing and connecting.

I also encourage Gregory to incorporate more means of student-input for assessments as well as student reflection and peer feedback; the time at BSHS was short and with more time, I believe Gregory can nimbly integrate these additional components of assessment into his lessons.

Standard Six: Professional Knowledge and Growth

Greg is extremely thoughtful and accurate, albeit hard on himself, in his reflections of his daily lessons. This is, of course, a blessing and a curse.

Greg often incorporated observations of individual students in his reflections, a marker of his care and commitment to creating a positive and productive learning space for each student.

Greg is also very open to critique from mentors and co-teachers. He is very responsive to feedback and makes daily improvements in his lessons based off of the previous day’s learning. Greg worked very well with his teaching partner. He was very flexible as their ideas evolved as they lesson planned. He came to class prepared every day.

An example of Greg’s mix of flexibility, experimentation, and reflection can be seen in the development of an entrance ticket near the end of the unit. His co-teacher had wanted to experiment with movement during the Entrance Ticket time to see if they could wake students up a bit. Greg agreed and facilitated the Entrance Ticket. Upon reflecting on the experience, Greg accurately noted that he should have had students write individually before asking them to engage in an agree/disagree spectrum activity.

As he moves forward in his teaching career, I am confident that Greg will be proactive in his exploration of new strategies, curriculum, and teaching approaches.

Standard Seven: Engagement with Subject Matter

Gregory engaged productively with the BSHS curriculum he and his co-teacher created.  Gregory arrived at the program with a wealth of knowledge on lesson-planning and classroom management, as well as a strong background in human development within education. He has gracefully applied this background knowledge to the social studies classroom. He is able to select and utilize instructional materials that are effective for adolescent learners. He is comfortable presenting and explaining content to students in a way that is understandable and accurate. His analytical aptness helps him to analyze and discuss new content in a way that reflects his understanding of the nature of the world within which we live, especially as it pertains to issues of social justice.

Greg took time to teach skills such as reading comprehension strategies. He then used these strategies in a content-rich primary source. He then embedded a study of what a primary source is and how we approach them. In this way, Gregory is comfortable weaving content and skills together in a classroom.

Greg and his co-teacher also worked to activate prior knowledge and encourage the sharing of personal stories as a way to affirm the cultures and backgrounds present in the classroom. They used texts that students could relate to on different levels, from age, to ethnic background, to student interests. Throughout their entire unit they provided ample opportunities for students to connect their lives to content, from connecting the classroom constitution to our local student union, to how their choices as consumers relate to the United Farm Workers. They also fostered translanguaging in their classroom; students used both English and Spanish when collaborating and making meaning out of concepts.  

Gregory and his co-teacher ended BSHS with a project that asked students to create an idea for their own social movement. They were asked how they would include different groups in their movement and how their movement reflected past movements such as the UFW or The DREAMers. This project reflects their commitment to democratic classrooms where teachers encourage students to develop their own voices and think critically about their role in the world.

The curriculum that Gregory crafted reflects a desire to help students link past and present, and to motivate authentic engagement with content. Gregory in particular wanted to ensure that his students were offered multiple representations of content and scaffolded graphic organizers that helped them to do the cognitive lifting and arrive at their own conclusions.

As Gregory moves forward in his curricular work, I am confident he will be able to design units and lessons that honor the historical context and intricacies of the moment. I encourage him in his student-teaching to continue strengthening his “historical muscle” through designing content units in his graduate level history courses.

Recommendation: It is with great confidence and enthusiasm that I recommend Gregory for a student-teacher placement this year. He will be an asset to any class that he joins.

*Please note that some minor edits have been made in order to protect the identities of colleageues.  The substance of this evaluation remains unchanged.