Practicum Plan Review

Practicum Plan

When developing my practicum plan, I developed three main learning goals. I felt that the three were very important for me to grow as an educator. The first goal was organization. I felt that I was unorganized with my education assignments (lesson plans etc) and needed to become organized better. To do this, I created a binder with my assignments, classroom handouts, lesson plans and any thing else I feel will help me with my growth as a teacher.

Another learning goal I had was clasroom management. During the fall, I felt that I did not have great classroom management and needed to work on this. To do this, I have used methods from Education 401. Also, being in the classroom more often has allowed me to gain more respect and have better classroom management, as the students have gotten more respect and familiar with me.

My final goal was time management. This was important to me because during the fall I created lessons that did not take up the entire period. I have been extremely successful with creating lessons that last an entire period. I have discussed this with my teacher (the most out of the 3 learning goals) and he has helped me with various worksheets and ideas to extend the lesson for the full period. Being in the school longer and creating more lessons this semester than previous semesters has allowed me to understand how in depth and long my lesson plans should be. I feel that I have learned the most from creating this goal and it has helped me the most as well.

Characteristics

PDS Wiki

Using Rubrics

I have had a great deal of experience with using rubrics. I have been assessed from them and I have assessed using them. In high school many of my teachers often used them and in my English classes in college, many professors have used them as well. At my PDS my teacher used them for a project and the students were allowed to see the rubric while they were working on their project.

They are useful, especially if the students get to see the rubric. When a student sees a rubric, they understand what will get them an A, B, etc. The students are then given freedom to choose how to conduct their project, knowing fully the rewards for their efforts. Rurbics may be a little bit limiting as it is very structured. A teacher may feel that a student gave 100% effort but did not meet the rubric requirements. A situation like this would be very hard to grade. There are always problems like this with projects and using a rubric will give the teacher structure in grading.

What are your experiences with using Rubrics?

Assessing Students

At my PDS, my teacher has used many forms of assessment. I have seen her use tests, but mainly she uses projects. When she assigns a project, she grades the student and the class grades the students. I think this is a unique and great way to grade. The students assess each other based on what they learned. This allows the students to become more involved and interested with each others projects. Another assessment the teacher has used is writing an essay. Although they are short they ask clear questions and allow the student to understand what he/she is researching. Essays allow the students to be creative because they can create their own answers.

I think it is very creative to have the students assess each other. Students become much more interested with each others projects when they are being presented, because they have to grade each other. Also this motivates students to perform better because their peers (not the teacher only) are grading them. Another idea that I like is oral exams. Some students do not perform well on written tests. An oral exam allows the student to explain themselves. The oral exam works well if there is a written exam too. Both of these exams give almost all types of learners an opportunity to show what they have learned.

Content Standards

I have had a small amount of exposure to content standards. My mentor teacher gives me a copy of her lesson plans. The lesson plans contain the CSOs that are being met. I have also done a little bit of research for class on CSOs in West Virginia. I have used the government web page to look at various standards for different grade levels of a social studies teacher.

I believe that the government has provided teachers with enough flexibility to be creative in their teaching, but keep every classroom similar. They make sure that all students are learning the same facts and this is important in the classroom. I believe that although many teachers are not fans of CSOs they do help organize the classes throughout the state. If issues continue to arise (such as creating standardized tests) teachers should have more input to the CSOs.