A teacher applies a current and comprehensive repertoire of effective planning, instruction, and assessment practices to meet the learning needs of every student.
I am truly passionate about planning and designing learning activities that: foster student understanding of the link between the activity and the intended learning outcomes; consider relevant local, provincial, national and international contexts and issues; are varied, engaging and relevant to students. As my visual metaphor shows these are ideas that I feel are central to the education of students. I want my students to be engaged in their learning experiences, and feel that what they are learning is important and relevant to them as they grow. When I plan lessons I think of the intentionality behind the lesson, not only from the program of studies but also from the character lessons that can be built upon every day. I believe that teachers are not installers of knowledge, that learning happens only when all of the right conditions are met, teachers are the nurturers that help the seeds of learning take root.
When applying student assessment and evaluation practices that support the use of reasoned judgment about the evidence used to determine and report the level of student learning I refer to my learnings in my assessment class. My final paper below outlines my understandings, as well as my criticisms of the current practices of summative assessment in regard to report card indicators. I believe assessments need to be more holistic and describe the rich learning experiences that individual students achieve. In my practice, I will focus on providing all levels of assessment (as, of, for) with strong formative practices that will support my students and allow them to show growth no matter the time of year.
I will accomplish this by using instructional strategies to engage students in meaningful learning activities, based on specialized knowledge of the subject areas [ I ] teach. While I will be certified to teach and assess students in a variety of subjects, my passion is in the English Language Arts and I feel that my paper on Enduring Understandings from my Specialization Two class shows how competent I am in this area of study. Drawing on my experiences as a mother with two of my children with learning exceptionalities in this discipline, I have a deeper knowledge base on how to encourage literacy from a very young age, to those who are leaving the secondary school behind. For examples of my lesson plans please see my Social Justice Lesson Plan HERE and my Interdisciplinary Lesson Plan “May the Forest Be With You” HERE.