Reflection 2

Which Professional Learning Goal would I want to emphasize during a job interview?

Policy:
Fundamental Principles

My learning goal is to ensure that all of my students have the opportunity provided to them as often as possible to succeed, not simply in school, but in life as well.

To achieve this goal, I must be attentive to each and every student in the classroom and make sure I am enabling them to do their best through differentiated instruction when it is necessary

Special Education in Ontario:  Weber, K. J., and Sheila Bennett. Special Education in Ontario  Schools. Seventh ed. St. Davids: Highland, 2013. Print. Student Success Strategy. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/teachers/studentsuccess/strategy.html

I would choose to emphasize this in a job interview because I feel like student success is the most important part of their education. Making every student believe that they are able and capable of achieving something is imperative to their continued effort and engagement. I have personally worked with a student in my placement on a math assignment and saw that he was struggling with a certain concept, as I worked through the problems with him and provided him with as many different tips and tricks as possible, he was successfully able to complete the task and his confidence was boosted tremendously. 

Reflection 1

Think about how you will use the Assessment page of your Digital Portfolio during your first teaching block. Provide 2 examples, 1 writing paragraph for each.

1) I plan to use my Assessment page of my Digital Portfolio in many different ways throughout my teaching block. To begin with, I believe it will be convenient to have so many useful resources all located in one easy place to find. The resources we have used throughout the year are fantastic for providing answers to possibly tricky questions or situations we may face in the coming weeks. I believe as educators it is important that we put in the most effort possible when it comes to being fair and just with our students so simply answering something we may be unsure of without checking the resources available to us is unfathomable to me.

2) I can also see myself using my Assessment page as a reminder that there are many steps to follow when assessing and evaluating students. The steps of the process have been laid out for us in our AER Strategy Form and allow us to reflect on how we are growing as educators; are we treating students equally or are we letting our personal bias' get in the way of being fair? It serves as a reminder that every student has the right to be successful and that we have set personal goals to achieve throughout our teaching block. This process is something that must be taken seriously because we are responsible for these students' future, molding them and shaping them and helping them to become the best that they can be.

AER Strategy For- EDBE 8Y01

Hey guys, take a look at this document to see some of the goals I will be setting for myself in my placement throughout the year!

Blog Post 2-Growing Success and Assessment

Assessment

Growing success the Kindergarten Addendum states that there are seven fundamental principles when it comes to assessment. It stresses that assessment should be fair and equitable for all students, it supports all students including those with special education needs, are carefully planned to relate to curriculum expectations, are communicated to both students and parents, are ongoing and varied in nature and help students develop their self-assessment skills to enable them to assess their own learning. Growing Success the kindergarten addendum and Growing Success have both helped me gain a better understanding of how to be conscious of following all of these criteria.

Evaluation and assessment must be fair and equal for all students so reading these documents has put an emphasis on how to be sure to be fair to all students and treat every student equally. each and every student needs to be asses according to their individual needs and as educators, I feel that it is mandatory to ensure we are putting as much effort into student assessment and evaluation as they are when they are submitting their work.

One thing we have learned over the last 11 weeks is that there are 3 different types of assessment, Assessment As Learning, Assessment For Learning and Assessment Of Learning. These are all different levels in which you will be assessing your students. What are they? Good question...

Assessment As Learning

In assessment as learning, students are active contributors. students are assessing themselves as they are learning. 

Assessment For Learning

This is a formative and diagnostic form of assessment. We are assessing something that can be changed if modifications needs to be made based on students levels of understanding. 

Assessment Of Learning

This form of assessment is summative. It is based on using exit cards from a lesson for example, to gain an understand of what students learned during the lesson. 

Reading the Growing Success documents has helped me become much more confident in my abilities to assess students and to know that there are many documents available to help with guidelines and understanding of certain areas if I am having trouble. 

Retrieved November 24th 2016 From: Pinterest

Blog Post Week 1- Assessment

Retrieved October 28th 2016 From: JPhotostyle

As I make my way into the seventh week of the Teacher Education Program, I am starting to finally get the hang of it. This week, we started our assessment course, and honestly up to this point, I have not had a tremendous amount of time in the classroom setting. I have been observing in my placement school, however have only had the opportunity to be in the classroom three times so far.


I have noticed that teachers seem to be straying away from the "traditional" testing methods and have become more open to the concepts of differentiated assessment. I do find the task of assessment to be daunting as you need to consider the needs of each individual students, and there may be students in the classroom that have different ways of portraying their ideas.


I remember being tested in school and remember how anxious the traditional method would make me. Being formally tested can be nerve-wracking at any age, even as a university student, the thought of sitting in a gym with hundreds of other students and having the pressure of being done on time makes it seem like it goes by so much faster.


I do believe that traditional assessment can take away from students, it can take away their creativity and the nervousness they may be experiencing may hold them back. Throughout the year I feel like there should be many different options available to students so that they will be assessed in different ways. Traditional testing is necessary in some aspects as you do need to know your students ability level and to make sure that they are being tasked appropriately, however I feel like individual creativity is becoming such a big part of today's education that every student should have the opportunity to be evaluated based on something that would come across as slightly less daunting.


I do look forward to having the opportunity to be in my classroom for my placement more frequently as I have not yet had the chance to experience my associate teacher's methods of assessment and I feel like there is a lot I can learn from someone who has been in the role for a long time. I do feel that there is a lot of pressure on students to succeed, and that the social standards of success can bring a student down if they are not graded where they thought they should have been.


Based on that thought, this is something that does appear at every grade level, we are all so focused on making sure that we receive a level 4 grade, however are we leaving ourselves enough time to maintain a healthy lifestyle? Something I would like to focus on when I am in my teaching block and even observing in my classroom is how effective different types of assessment can be. Is traditional testing the best way to go or will students strive through different methods?

Retrieved October 28th 2016 from: Flickr