This course forced me to think about the different instructional strategies I use in my classroom every day. It also made me think about the instructional strategies my colleagues use in their classrooms every day. Throughout this course, I learned about different instructional strategies, tried them in my classroom and received feedback on my implementation of the instructional strategy. We used two different books during this course, Visible Learning by Hattie and Classroom Instruction that Works by Hubbell, Pitler, Dean, and Stone. Both texts were able to break down a lesson from beginning to end and point out the key aspects of each part of the lesson. While I gained a lot of knowledge around instructional strategies from the reading, the two aspects of this class that were the most helpful were the bimonthly feedback on my classroom instruction, and the professional development I put together for my department.
Every two weeks, I was expected to video a specific instructional strategy in my classroom. Based off of the reading for the week, I would incorporate a teaching strategy and then upload the video for my classmates to watch. I would then receive feedback on my teaching from my classmates. This was incredibly helpful for me. The school I work at has a high turnover rate making it hard for my Assistant Principal to visit my classroom and provide feedback on a regular basis. A large percentage of our staff is on the comprehensive evaluation system taking up a lot of the focus of our Admin team. Being able to video myself teaching not only gave me something to watch and improve on, it also gave others a window into my classroom from afar. I have included one of the videos I uploaded to receive feedback on. This video focused on cooperative learning in the classroom. With creating videos to receive feedback from my classmates, the idea for my department professional development began to form.
With the growth I was experiencing from receiving regular feedback on my teaching, I wanted to come up with a way to help teachers in my department grow as well. For my professional development I focused on our Professional Learning Communities [PLC] and how we can provide feedback to each other around our teaching. I decided to design my professional development around the idea of drop-in observations. This project is particularly meaningful to me because I am going to be able to implement the idea of PLC drop-in observations starting in the fall. I provided three different templates for my department to look at, and three different goal ideas for PLC's. The idea behind my professional development is for teachers to come up with goals in their PLC's and then get into each others classrooms and watch each other teach with their specific PLC goal in mind. Here is my professional development PowerPoint on PLC's (PLC's).
Overall, this course has made me think about the instructional strategies I am using in my classroom and if they are truly benefiting all of my students. It has made me look at the planning I am doing for my lessons and ask new questions before I start my day such as, am I going to be able to reach all of my students with this strategy, is there another way I could present this to give students more access points, is this strategy going to meet the needs of my students who are struggling and my students who are excelling, etc. I still have a lot to learn when it comes to making sure the instructional strategies are working for the majority of my students but I will continue to try new strategies to hopefully help more students feel successful in mathematics.
No comments:
Post a Comment