Reflect on Teaching Practices

Video Transcription

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are having a wonderful day today. Today, we're going to look at Reflecting on Teaching Practices.

For today's lesson, I've chosen a quote by Carl Sandburg, which states, "It is necessary for a man to go away by himself, to sit on a rock and ask, 'Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?" I think this is a wonderful quote on the power of reflection and the necessity of reflection. And that's what we're going to be looking at today.

By the end of today's lesson, you will be able to reflect on your teaching practices using either the Charlotte Danielson Framework or the National Board Teacher Standards. For our reflection today, we are going to use a lesson plan that incorporates an English language arts standard.

This is the English language arts literacy standard for ninth through 10th grade, which says that students will determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details. They'll also provide an objective summary of the text. I've also aligned this with technology standard.

The ISTE Student Standard number two, communication and collaboration, which states that students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Once we have those two standards, we're able to develop our outcomes or our objectives, the "I Can" statements for what we want our students to be able to show by the end of the lesson.

The "I Can" statements for this lesson are I can provide an objective summary of the text. You'll notice that connects directly to our content standard. I can determine the theme of a text and analyze its development throughout the text, again, directly connected to our content standard. And finally, the "I Can" statement that's connected to our technology standard. I can use digital tools to collaborate with peers and communicate the theme and summary of the text.

Now let's take a look at what this lesson plan will look like in action. I have my learning plan. Now, this isn't very detailed. Yours can be more or less detailed, depending on how much control and foresight you want in terms of your lesson. Or you can leave it a little more open to allow yourself room to be flexible with your students.

So my learning plan is that over the course of a week, students will read a short story, discuss the content, analyze the theme, and work in groups to present their findings to the class. If I were going to develop this learning plan even more, I would include the specific day-by-day elements. I would include the specific story that I'm going to use.

I would also probably have in there, for my notes, a little information on developing with the students strong vocabulary for theme. And I would also have in there more specific details about their final project.

The formative assessments that I'm going to use-- I'm going to use two of them. The first is I'm going to have students respond using Google Docs. This is a wonderful way for them to collaborate, share with their peers, and share with me responses to various textual content questions. Here is how I'm going to be looking along the way to see whether or not students are following in on what's happening in the text.

Next, I'll look at in-class discussions on theme and the development of that theme. That way, I'm able to really focus in on if students are following how to find the theme, how to assess the theme, and then look at how the theme develops. Finally, I have my summative assessment, my assessment at the very end, which states that student will present a Prezi that they have created in groups summarizing the text and explaining the development of the theme. I've chosen this Prezi because I think it is a very student-friendly and fun way of interacting with technology to present the information that I want them to know.

As we look now at reflecting on that lesson and our teaching practices within that lesson, let's focus in on the Charlotte Danielson Framework. We are going to take a look at our lesson and see whether or not there are any areas for revision. The first question in the Danielson Framework is, does my lesson demonstrate knowledge of content and pedagogy.

I would say that, in this case, my lesson definitely demonstrates the knowledge of the content standard. We have a pretty clear content standard that we're using there. And it does lay out both summative and formative assessments so both that assessment at the very end as well as the assessments that we'll look at along the way. This, to me, shows an elementary knowledge of both what we're trying to cover within the content of English language arts and some best practices when we're working within standards-based learning. So I'm going to go ahead and give this a yes.

Question 2. Does my plan demonstrate knowledge of students? What I've done here that I believe really demonstrates a knowledge of students is focuses in on the step-by-step method that it will take for students to go from an understanding of what the text is merely saying to understanding what a theme is, how to develop that theme, and then to show the development of the theme throughout the course of the text.

Question 3. Does my lesson include instructional outcomes? Those were those "I Can" statements that we looked at the very beginning.

Question 4. Does my lesson demonstrate knowledge of the use of appropriate resources? This is an area where if I was truly reflecting on my lesson plan, I would probably go back and add in a little more detail to acknowledge the use of resources. We have picked out some digital tools. And that shows a knowledge of appropriate resources, both the use of Google Docs as well as my use of iRubrics in the creation of the rubric and also the use of a Prezi. But it wouldn't hurt to go back and show some additional resources that students could use in terms of theme development if they were having difficulties with that.

Question 5. Does the lesson outline a plan for coherent instruction? I believe it does as the lesson goals step by step in terms of what the students are going to do along the way. That being said, this would be another great place for additional detail to show day by day how the lesson will progress over the course of the week.

Finally, the Danielson Framework asks, does the lesson include appropriate assessments of student learning. I believe that it does. But this is one of those areas that really you have to judge for yourself. And when we look at reflecting, we look both at the creation of the lesson plan reflecting on it before we put it into practice as well as reflecting on how the lesson went and what I want to adjust as I continue on with that lesson with future classes or future years. So this would be an area that could possibly change depending on when you are doing the reflection.

Another wonderful way to reflect on your lesson and teaching practices is to use the National Board of Teacher Standards. The first step in using this to reflect on instruction and what needs to be changed is to first use those five essential questions to determine if you have met the needs of all students through your instruction. Here's a little refresher on what those five essential questions are.

First, is the objective clear? Do students know what I expect them to know and to be able to do? Second, do I indicate how I will get them there? Third, how will I know if the students know or are able to do the information presented?

Four, what will I do if they aren't able to present this information? And finally, what will I do if they've already mastered it? So the first step, as called for by the National Board Teacher Standards, is to look back through and answer those five essential questions.

The next step would be to ask yourself, did you incorporate standards-based instructional practices and assessment practices as defined by Marzano, Guskey, and Hattie. This is really focusing in on whether or not you are paying attention to the true power of the zero and avoiding that dirty data or whether or not you've really focused in on making that learning visible so that the students are able to take ownership over the material and the assessment and acquisition and finally proficiency of it. Finally, it asks, what further learning or support do you need in the future to improve your standards-based instructional practices moving forward.

What I really love about this portion is that it is not just asking you to reflect on the lesson you have planned, but really it's saying what do, I as a teacher in my own education, need to reach out and get so that I can better help my students meet those objectives. Now that we've reached the end of the lesson today, you're able to reflect on your teacher practices using either the Charlotte Danielson Framework or the National Board Teacher Standards, two excellent tools to help in your reflection process.

Now I would like to take just a moment for you to practice this reflection. Now that you've learned about the various ways in which you can reflect on your teaching practices, what would be the first step that you might take to begin implementing this reflection using the Danielson Framework or the National Board Teacher Standards as you reflect on your lessons? Feel free to pause the video for a moment if you need to to reflect upon your answer to this question.

Now it's your turn to apply what you've learned in this video. And the additional resources section will be super helpful to you in this. This section is designed to help you discover useful ways to apply what you've learned here. Each link also includes a brief description so that you can easily target the resources that you want.

That's all we have for right now. But I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.