Acc. Teaching- End of Quarter Reflection

Program Standard 2

When I look back at where I started this course, I feel a little silly. I enrolled in grad school this year with the overall goal of improving my teaching and leadership skills. I started my first course, Accomplished Teaching, and I got super excited. What happened, though, is that I set lofty, unrealistic goals that didn’t really fit my teaching practice or the opportunities I had available. Rather than thinking about reflection or effective planning, the stated course objectives, that I could fit into my practice or rework my practice to better include, I thought about all the “big” picture ideas like standards based grading and inquiry based learning. In other words, I wanted to totally start from scratch, which isn’t the point of this program and really isn’t a possibility for my current teaching situation.

As I read Reflective Practice to Improve Schools (York-Barr et al., 2006), I realized that it is actually the smaller changes that can have the most impact. I need to know what I have in terms of teaching and collaborative skills, and what works or doesn’t work, in order to grow in these areas. I met with a partner a few times throughout the course, and because we lived close enough we were able to have face-to-face meetings. This fostered a sense of trust between us. Initially it was difficult because we teach in different subject areas at very different schools, but working with another to analyze teaching and learning “offers a safeguard against perpetuating only our own thoughts” (York-Barr et al., 2006). We used a tuning protocol to evaluate each other’s lessons. We found that we had similar ideas about feedback, and I enjoyed seeing her students’ paperback notebooks as I showed her my students’ digital ones. 

Feedback on the same student's third timed essay

Feedback on a student's second timed essay

From teaching my collaborative lesson to my work in the classroom, I found that an area that I really need to focus on improving my teaching is building my students’ analysis skills. I focused on this area for my synthesis paper. I learned that while many history teachers say they are giving ample opportunities for students to analyze and create their own arguments, it is only a very small percentage that give tasks that genuinely require that kind of thinking (Capps & Vocke, 1991). I worried I was guilty of the same. By reading articles and attending professional development on how to teach this skill, I learned that practice alone is not enough for student success. Monte-Sano, in two different studies, shows that access to a variety of sources and different writing tasks is very important (2008; 2012). I have begun to vary my students’ writing tasks, and I have seen improvement in their analysis strategies. One student, pleased with her higher score, told me that she “didn’t study” for her most recent test, but then very quickly took back her answer. She said, “Well, I did study, but I didn’t worry so much about memorizing so many facts. I thought about my own opinion, and I talked with my classmates to hear their opinion.” Her essay reflected this new strategy, and she has steadily improved from the first essay test.

This class has been a great gateway into my grad school experience. I am getting back into the school “rhythm” and throughout the quarter I have been better able to fit class work to my classroom needs, rather than the other way around. I look forward to continuing to improve my practice.


References

Blythe, T., Allen, D., & Powell B.S. (1999). Tuning protocol: Overview. New York: Teachers College Press.Accessed at www.nsrfharmony.org.
Capps, K., & Vocke, D.E. (1991). Developing higher-level thinking skills through American history writing assignments. OAH Magazine of History, 6(2), 6-9. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25162811

Monte-Sano, C. (2008). Qualities of historical writing instruction: a comparative case study of two teachers’ practices. American Educational Research Journal, 45(4), 1045-1079. Http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0002831208319733

Monte-Sano, C., & Harris, K. (2012). Recitation and reasoning in novice history teachers’ use of writing. The Elementary School Journal, 113(1), 105-130. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/666388

York-Barr, J., Sommer, W.A., Ghere, G.S., & Montie, J.K. (2006). Reflective Practice to Improve Schools: An action guide for educators (2^nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.