Section V. Philosophy of Teaching
My own personal drive has been to transform my classroom and others into a 21st century learning environment. I have embraced this idea of change in the classroom in several ways. First, gone are the days of my students sitting in assigned seats and in rows all facing front. I have changed my classroom into flexible seating arrangements that we change daily to meet our needs. I had such a great response to this that several of the teachers within the school have changed their rooms as well. Second,I am always looking for new and exciting ways to present information and topics in my class that will inspire learning and get the students excited about the topics that we are covering in class. Integrating as much
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The students use this data to plot another point on their data charts and to see their progress. I have found that this has been very beneficial for my students. It allows them to see what specific learning targets they understand and what they still need help with. So any interventions that I do are specific to the students' and their needs. We end a unit with a summative assessment. The students plot this last data point in their folders and can see how far they have come since their pre-assessment. This has been a valuable process in my grading and RTI distribution. It has given so much more meaning to a grade in my class. A 40 doesn't mean failure, it means that they have mastered some concepts, but that they need help with others. Likewise, an 80 does not always mean the student has mastered everything. By digging deeper into the data, I am able to reflect on the lessons and what I can do or change so that all my students meet mastery level for that concept. The students are able to seek help for the topics they need, which eliminates class or tutoring time spent on concepts that they have already demonstrated mastery. It is very rewarding to see how excited the students become about their progress on various concepts. Most students are blown away by how much knowledge they gain on a topic between their pre assessment and their summative assessment. The data makes their growth of knowledge a tangible thing, we is extremely rewarding for both the students and