Reflection on Professional Practice

       8. The teacher participates collaboratively in the educational community, showing mutual support and cooperation in eliciting feedback from colleagues and supervisors. A teacher shows exemplary professional practice by participating collaboratively in the educational community to improve instruction, advance the knowledge and practice of teaching as a profession, and ultimately impact student learning. Moreover, a teacher exemplifying professional practice elicits feedback from colleagues and supervisors to apply toward improving student learning success. Thus, fostering and maintaining a professional environment of respect and inclusiveness—where teachers acknowledge their differences in their backgrounds and pedagogy but their sameness in the heart they have for affecting positive change in society through effectively educating their students—is crucial to success in professional practice as a teacher [1].

Professional practices, or responsibilities, range from contract obligations such as staying thirty-minutes after school and attending staff and professional learning community (PLC) meetings to building and maintaining healthy, collaborative relationships within the educational community. In my couple of months as a student teacher, I have been attending and participating in every professional meeting as if I was a contracted teacher, and discovered that collaboration among teachers has its difficulties that, if not well-traversed, can hamper an individual or the entire team’s professional growth and development [2]. In “Work Together But Only if You Want To,” Du Four warns that teacher collaboration that focuses on negativity such as punishments for students or delegation of tasks and norms will cause team meetings to “deteriorate into complaint sessions” (2011, p. 60). The first day I joined my assigned PLC group as a student teacher, one member confessed their feelings of being unheard and disrespected in past PLC meetings and apologized to the team for their part in causing those meetings to perpetually end in deadlock, promising that they will be making a conscious effort to participate with a greater sense of collegiality and receptiveness toward items on the PLC agenda regarding norms and rules [3]. I realized at that point the opportunity I had to learn secondhand the importance of mutual support and cooperation in allowing for professional growth and development from collaboration. Despite an especial effort of said member as observed at subsequent meetings and in group emails to turn a new leaf and work harmoniously with other PLC group members, another member continued to discuss with other group members about past enmity for said group member and kept the antipathy alive [4]. Witnessing the collateral damage of ineffective teacher collaboration helped me realize that (1) an individual member’s determination, alone, to be respectful and cooperative to optimize the benefit of collaboration toward advancing pedagogy and ultimately impact student learning does not necessarily mean all other members will reciprocate for the success of said collaboration and (2) failing to navigate team politics well can permanently damage one's relationships within that specific professional community and diminish the potential value of collaboration for personal professional growth and development [5]. To enjoy the benefits of teacher collaboration, I internalized from my observation the fundamental importance of always observing effective interpersonal and conversation skills as well as working with other members "in good faith" to "develop a guaranteed and viable curriculum to ensure that students have access to the same essential knowledge and skills regardless of the teacher to whom they are assigned" (p. 61) in order to sustain access to the opportunity and benefits of teacher collaboration [6].

       Teacher collaboration helps teachers achieve ever increasing number of standards for student performance and success, therefore teachers whom strive to optimize instructional practices to meet the needs of all students and devise assessments most appropriate and engaging for all learners would find that the collaborative culture of teacher collaboration in professional learning communities lead to “higher levels of student achievement” (DuFour, 2011, p. 60) [5].

References

DuFour, R. (2011). Work Together But Only If You Want To. Kappan, 92(5), 57-61. 

Learning Environment

      

            In my focused observation for classroom management strategies, I observed a General Chemistry teacher demonstrate distinguished ability in managing classroom procedures [5.2, 2c] and student behavior [5.5, 2d].

To promote student accountability and people-management skills among the students, the teacher implements a real-world management system of grouping the students in teams of four wherein one member is designated “project manager.” For a two-week duration, the designated project manager is responsible for their team’s progress per the learning schedule and assumes responsibility for efficient submission of classwork and homework by group members so that transitions in the class are seamless [5.2, 2c]. Moreover, the team-directed-by-a- “project manager” model also ensures that the student behavior is directly and respectfully monitored by the students and their peers rather than the teacher [5.5, 2d]. In this way, the teacher steers clear of the role of “headmaster,” thus able to focus more of his attention and energy on his ability to effectively explain the learning material as well as that of his students on learning by discovery.

Figure. 1. General Chemistry Classroom Layout.

A second, more subtle strategy for management of classroom procedures and student behavior is the classroom layout wherein the rectangular tables are arranged in a way that promotes student attentiveness toward the front board during lectures [5.2, 2c; 5.5, 2d]. According to Wong & Wong (2009), such as strategy promotes learning because “students face the board learn more” (p. 94). For the teacher, having students sit in positions in which the students must put effort into seeing the learning material makes it challenging for the teacher to monitor and gauge student engagement. As shown in Figure 1., the students in this General Chemistry class are positioned in a way in which they do not have to constantly turn and twist to face the teacher and direct all their attention toward thinking about information relayed during lecture-discussions. With the seating arrangement utilized, the teacher effectively eliminated student body-posturing that is uncomfortable and disadvantageous to learning.

Through implementation of student self-management and a classroom layout conducive to learning, the General Chemistry teacher I observed demonstrates excellent ability in maintaining student behavior and smooth transitions in classroom procedures.

References

Wong, H. K., & Wong, R. T. (2009). The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher (4th ed.). Mountain View, CA: Harry K. Wong Publications.

Direct Instruction

The first learning target of the school year entailed familiarization with the parts and operation of a microscope, observation of specimens—ranging from microorganisms (e.g., tardigrades, rotifers, nematodes) to plant (e.g., elodea, onion) and animal cells (e.g., students’ own swabbed cheek cells, amoeba), and preparation of wet mounts.  During my focused observation of my mentor teacher’s periods 3, 4, and 6 biology classes, I witnessed student response to direct instruction and the corresponding forms of questioning [2.1]. Direct instruction is explicit teaching of concepts and procedures using lectures or demonstrations of the learning material to students.

For the first 10-15 minutes of a period of Biology, my mentor teacher lectured on the parts of a compound microscope using a camera-projector and provided background information on the microorganisms used for compound microscope practice with a PowerPoint presentation.  Afterward, I interacted with each individual student in order to assess for understanding of the microscope parts, calculation of magnification, and how to use the microscope. Once I saw that they understood what they needed to about the microscope, I signed their handout so that they could proceed to practice microscopy with the moss petri dishes they prepared [6.4].

In the days following, I had an opportunity to use direct instruction in conducting a demonstration and lecture for the subsequent class periods after having observed my mentor teacher demonstrate for 10-15 minutes using a document camera-projector on how to prepare microscope slides of plant cells—elodea and onion—and animal cells—the students’ own cheek cells and purchased whole mount microscope slides of amoebas—for use in practicing microscope operation and explain using a PowerPoint presentation acceptable and unacceptable examples of documentation of microscope findings. For this specific lesson, students were expected to continue familiarizing themselves with the microscope and learn how to adjust the microscope in order to get an introductory look at the different, observable cell parts that was then introduced the following day through a lecture spanning for most of each class period. Specifically, this lab required students to properly focus the compound microscope so that they can then illustrate their observations on a pre-formatted handout provided by the teacher. Students worked in with their tablemates (each table group contain 3-4 students).  Findings were reported with illustration and description.

Closed-ended questioning was used throughout the demonstration and lecture, specifically because most of the students had no background knowledge of microscopy use or the specimens utilized for practicing microscope usage. At the very beginning of class, my mentor teacher stated that the day’s learning objective:

·       In table groups, students need prepare two microscope slides: one of an elodea leaf and one of a group member’s swabbed cheek cell(s).

·       Students are instructed to replicate the procedure my mentor teacher demonstrated on preparation of microscope slides with the target specimens (e.g., elodea, human cheek) in order to further practice their ability to properly focus the compound microscope for study of specimens and familiarize themselves with the different parts of the plant cell (i.e., elodea) and animal cell (i.e., human cheek) as an introduction to a comparison of plant and animal cells.

Immediately following the demonstration, my mentor teacher shared poor and excellent examples of student observations using the compound microscope and corresponding documentation with illustrations and descriptions. For most the PowerPoint presentation, my mentor teacher told the students the reasoning for acceptable and unacceptable examples of documentation of observations with the compound microscope.

During my turn to lecture and demonstrate procedures to the students, I prompted students to think about the content by asking them, “if someone could tell me why this is the case?” More often than not, students raised their hands to volunteer answers.  Students who raised their hands to volunteer answers were of no particular ability: one student is categorized as 504—noted as having an undefined learning disability—and another has no special notation on their student file. I did not have to resort to cold-calling on students to volunteer answers. A willingness to volunteer answers to prompts might indicate that the learning environment is one of respect and students feel safe to participate [5.1].

Introduction to Teaching Course Reflection

Teachers meet the goal of professional standard 8.2. Growing and Developing Professionally by voluntarily seeking out feedback from peers and supervisors in settings of professional collaboration. Given feedback is respected and consequently applied to improve student learning success if such advice is offered in the ideal atmosphere of respect and inclusiveness—where teachers acknowledge their differences is only in their backgrounds and their sameness, in the heart they have for affecting positive change in society through successfully educating their students. Ultimately, professional growth and development of teachers should lead to assumption of leadership in directing collaboration among fellow teachers [8].  

A classroom in which the teacher embraces culturally responsive teaching follows the same pattern of growth and exhibits the same level of respect and professionalism in communicating to students’ parents that their children are (1) in the hands of capable and caring teachers and (2) deriving the most from their schooling and in teaching students so that their learning has maximum authentic value and can be applied to the real world [7]. Through interaction with the guardians of students, teachers can acquire a better understanding of their students’ sociocultural backgrounds and improve planning of differentiated curriculum that maintains respect for all learners while fostering their educational success that leads to improved socioeconomic mobility [3].

Consequently, I would expect students to self-reflect, speak on their own behalf and accept full accountability for their academic performance: a strong student voice cultivates the want and capacity of students to change society rather than just survive it so, for this reason, should have precedence over parental involvement [1]. As an immigrant student with parents although educated had limited proficiency in spoken English, I had internalized that self-evaluation, improvement, and accountability for my academic performance was wholly my own since parental involvement and their communication with my teachers was little to none. With the current surge in “helicopter parents,” this view may thus be a “dynamic of differences” between me as a teacher and the more fervently involved parents of my students (Almendrala, 2015).

However, it is this (1) practiced independence as a student as well as (2) firsthand experience with both multicultural sensitivity and discrimination as a bilingual student from an immigrant family coming to America during the Third Wave of Vietnamese Refugees that provide me an advantage of insight in creating differentiated curriculum which promotes all voices and cultures in learning [3]. Due to my heightened sense of empathy for the extra burden immigrant children face in having to align with two different cultures—feeling like an outsider to the one they are trying to join—I would vary instructional technique that enhances multicultural sensitivity among students. Within the curriculum, I could integrate inclusive teaching strategies like cooperative learning activities such as small-group discussions or inviting students to share relevance of learning material to their everyday lives, which might offer students glimpses into the sociocultural backgrounds of peers of “nondominant cultures” (Kozleski, p. 2).

Utilizing a range of assessments which elicits both written and oral discourse is another teaching technique that is culturally responsive. When I arrived in the United States at nearly five years of age with no prior exposure to the English language, I managed to learn to read and write English very fast. But, like many children from nondominant cultures—both born & raised and immigrated to the United States—my native tongue remained the language of communication at home. Therefore, I lacked the practice in spoken standard English that White, American kids most reliably receive through talking with their parents. Due to this deficiency, I was less enthused about volunteering answers orally. My experience highlights the fact that some students may not reveal their understanding through speech as well as writing or vice versa, therefore by giving equal importance to written and oral discourse, I give all students—especially those of situations similar to my own—a better chance at applying their learning and revealing its progress. 

Finally, using inclusive examples for explanations but avoiding exclusionary language—either implied or overt—creates and allows for a classroom atmosphere of tolerance and inclusiveness, which in synergy facilitate student cooperation and expected learning outcomes.

References

Almendrala, A. (2015, Sept 30). 5 Signs You Were Raised by Helicopter Parents. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5-ways-to-tell-you-were-raised-by-helicopter-parents_us_5609de6ee4b0dd850308e260.

Kozleski, E.B. (2010, Jan). Culturally Responsive Teaching Matters! Equity Alliance at ASU. Retrieved from http://www.equityallianceatasu.org/sites/default/files/Website_files/CulturallyResponsive Teaching-Matters.pdf.