My World Is Rocked

Reflecting

Welcome to another exciting chapter in my adventures with EDU 410. Have you ever thought that you were completely understanding something only to have your world shattered and the repair? This is the intersection I am at with assessment and education within my own little world. Through my studies this week on assessment, I was introduced to the process called instructional decision making. This is a mind shifting concept that has caused me to reflect on my understanding of data, decision-making, and effectiveness, hello standard V. As I am still grasping the complete concept, I learned that the cycle consists of five aspects: assess, plan, teach, and reflect. If you are beginning a new year, the information you can start with from the assessment aspect would be the data from the previous year. Each part of the cycle coincides with some aspect of the North Carolina Teacher Candidate Standards. Assessment and plan are aligned with standard IV, facilitating student learning; teach coincides with standard III, this states the teachers know their content; and reflect is self-explanatory as it goes together with standard V, teachers are reflective of their practice. One more aspect that was covered in the academic week was comprehensive assessment. Using the five keys to comprehensive assessment; goals and measures, formative assessment, summative assessment, and student ownership, a teacher can try to develop a student-centered classroom. This is one of the key components for 21^st century learners.

Starting this week, I am doing a Twitter Chat for my EDU 410 class. After participating in my first chat, I realized this chat is beneficial for my current and future classrooms. #Games4ed was my preferred a room for this week, and the focus in this chat was on scavenger and treasure hunts. We discussed many applications and subjects that can collaborate and create innovative lessons. One take away I plan to use this year is to make QR codes for my students in third grade. Each year we do a wax museum project and students pick a personality to represent. I would like to record three short videos and a long introductory video for each student describing the identity of the person they are representing. We allow the students to do the research and record the videos, but we the teachers make sure that the QR codes are made and are accurate for the project. I think this type of innovation is needed for our classrooms and a project as this.

The big picture for my future is starting to shape up. My future students and parents can look forward to having a teacher who is willing to be as innovative as possible but not vary too far from the NCSCOS. I want to try and make the class student centered by reflecting over the data from all forms of assessment that we use. I even hope to have the students take part in the assessment themselves, as was described in my front-line lesson from this week. After doing an assessment of the students, I hope to do an assessment of myself in the reflection, to ensure that I am giving them what they need. Planning for the students and facilitating the learning of the new or repeated content must be a focal point. Our goal is to score a figurative touchdown each week or each lesson and ensure that we are prepared for the future we must face. Touchdown… Go Pats!

All right, until next time……

Always Learning, Always Growing;

William B. A. Alspaugh