Development: Teachers know how children grow.

Home Philosophy Autobiography Resume Standards Licensure Elements

 

Savanna Oaks Middle School Support Staff Evaluation

Completed May 30, 2004.  I worked at Savanna Oaks for 1 1/2 years.

My work at Savanna Oaks Middle School shows my commitment to teaching children in a caring and compassionate way.  It also shows that I perform my professional responsibilities at a quality level.

Wisconsin Teacher Standard Alignment

The primary alignment that this artifact has is with standard #2, The teacher understands how children with broad ranges of ability learn and provides instruction that supports their intellectual, social, and personal development.  I proved to the administration of Savanna Oaks Middle School after a full year of working there that I was “able to empower all kids and draw them actively into learning situations.”  I worked with students of all different abilities.  Almost all of the students developed a positive relationship with me that enabled us to work together as well as have fun together.  I gained the trust of the special education teachers that I would be a good person to have work with their students.  A few teachers actually requested that I work with their students.  I also had parents who commended me during parent/teacher conferences for the work I was doing with their children.

Through working at Savanna Oaks Middle School I learned that there are many different ways that children learn.  The main learning styles that exist are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.  Through my work I found that I needed to diversify my instruction based on the ability of the particular child or children I was working with.  I couldn’t ask the same question to a student who had Down’s Syndrome and the cognitive level of an six year old as I would with a student who had Emotional Behavioral Disorder and performed academically at the level of a thirteen year old.  I found that the students were at different developmental stages.

Jean Piaget has illustrated the various developmental stages that exist in people.  I worked with children who ranged all the way from the sensorimotor to the formal operations stage, all in middle school.  When working with children who were in the sensorimotor stage, I found that I needed to take time to show the student the objects I was talking about.  For example, if it was snack time, I would physically hold up the banana or other food item and say, “Are you hungry?” or “do you want a banana?”  The take home lesson for me was that some children can’t visualize things unless they are right there visible in front of them.  When children are at the preoperational thinking stage they will need to be able to visualize certain functions in a concrete way.  For instance, in math, I found that I needed to have a student physically place a coin and count out loud versus simply moving her finger from one coin to another.  When children are at the concrete operational stage, they still need to visualize things concretely.  For addition or subtraction, for instance, they will need to see the three objects alongside the other two objects to understand that three plus two equals five.  When children enter the abstract thinking stage or “formal operations stage, “ they will be able to consider many different propositions for a given condition.  Students in this stage are capable of developing the ability to form hypotheses, and they can use planning to think ahead.

Middle school is a place where students should be learning about how to get along with others and work together.  The students who are at the sensorimotor stage should have the opportunity to socialize with other students of their age range.  I would have some students volunteer to take walks with one of my students and play games with him, eventhough he couldn’t speak or sign.  The students who were at the preoperations stage could verbally socialize with other students.  It was important to have these students feel comfortable being around other students who were much more advanced cognitively than they were.  I would talk to some of the more empathetic advanced students and ask them to spend some time with some of the students who were in the preoperations stage.  It can take quite a bit of time for some of the students to gain the trust needed to have a meaningful relationship with other students.  This is something that needs to be fostered on an every day basis.

 

UW-Platteville School of Education Knowledge, Skill, Disposition Statement Alignment

KSD1.b  Demonstrates Knowledge of Students:  The evaluation states,”(Ech) is able to empower all kids and draw them actively into learning situations.”  I worked with kids ranging from the cognitive ability of a 1 ½ year old to students who were at a high school level for some subjects.  I found ways to effectively work with all of my students.  For some, it was a matter of learning how to communicate that they were hungry, for others it was delving into algebraic reasoning.

 

What I learned about teaching

I have come to the realization that I will need to learn about all the various ways that my students learn.  This will potentially change from one year to another. I will need to have a very close working relationship with the Special Education Case Managers who have my students on their caseloads.  These case managers will have much of the needed information about how the students learn best.  They will also have Individualized Education Plans for each of their students that lay out certain modifications that will be needed for the student to better succeed academically, socially and personally.  I believe it would be quite beneficial to have a working relationship with the students’ parents as well.  The parents can give much needed insight as to what works and what doesn’t work when teaching their children.  Kathleen Cotton and Karen Reed Wikelund wrote an article entitled “Parent Involvement in Education.”  As stated in the article,”The research overwhelmingly demonstrates that parent involvement in children's learning is positively related to achievement.”  This has influenced my thinking about parent involvement and I will strive to have meaningful involvement from the parents of my students.  There are various ways that this can be fostered.  One thing I plan on doing regularly is putting out a newsletter to the parents.  This would have to be accessible to all parents and, therefore, would need to be in hard copy delivered to certain homes as well as electronically sent to others.

 

What I learned about myself

I have learned that I have the desire and ability to relate to all kinds of different students.  I love being engaged with all different people, it is one of my passions.  I discovered that I didn’t have all the needed tools to best deliver instructional materials.  I will need to learn much more about the various effective instructional strategies.  Then I will need to utilize these strategies and practice them repeatedly to develop the needed fluency with them.

I have found that I will need to do a better job keeping in touch with students of years past.  I haven’t visited the students I worked with at Savanna Oaks for a while.  I would like to see how they are doing now.