Quality Standard 3: Teachers plan and deliver effective instruction and create an environment that facilitates learning for their students.
In standard 3, I believe that I am proficient. A major part of this is creating a positive classroom environment that invites students to learn. It is also about assessing students, and beginning to understand where each of my students is at. From this, I can help students grow and get better through developing critical and creative thinking skills. Part of creating this classroom environment is done through creating expectations for the students, that way they are able to be part of a positive classroom environment that allows for learning and growing to take place. These expectations can be made with the help of the students, so that they have a part in saying what the expectations will be, and therefore have control over their own learning environment. This semester, I learned a great deal about creating a positive learning environment online through doing daily check-ins and having students engage with the content in new ways. Virtual teaching has helped me grow to learn about how I can better teach in any situation. I can continue to work on allowing for students to work in teams. Collaborative art is a major part of art making in many cases. A project where students work in teams could allow for them to develop an understanding of collaborative art, and get the opportunity to try it.
Element B: Teachers use formal and informal methods to assess student learning, provide feedback, and use results to inform planning and instruction.Teachers demonstrate knowledge about the ways in which learning takes place, including the levels of intellectual, physical, social and emotional development of their students.
This assignment in particular allowed for me to reflect on my own assessment that I created for students. I was able to think about the possibilities moving forward teaching the content. Part of this protocol allowed for me to think through my own assessment development. It may have been helpful for us to give our expectations more clearly right away, because I think we somewhat confused the students, and because of that, a good portion of them didn’t meet the expectations. Being clear with assessment is something that I can therefore work on. It is also important to then reflect on how I can change my future instruction in order to best fit the needs of students. For this assessment, it was important that students knew some art vocabulary, however, their assessment showed that they could improve upon art vocabulary, so that is something that is important to teach in upcoming classes.
Element C: Teachers integrate and utilize appropriate available technology to engage students in authentic learning experiences.
Our MTV Instructional Strategies Presentation allowed for us to use technology to teach students. We recorded a video that allowed for students to learn in a way that fit into their own busy life. Alongside this, we used Padlet as a way to record responses. This allows for students to connect with the information they are learning in an interactive way. Padlet is great because it lets students be anonymous, but also gives us informal assessment information. It also lets students interact with each other and gain inspiration from each other’s responses. This technology is valuable to enrich student learning in my future classroom. Especially right now, technology is at the forefront of our minds, and so this is an opportunity to learn and push what we know about technology.