TWS 6 Reflection, Self-Evaluation, & Professional Development Whole class reflective discussion: I taught my first lesson on February 12,

2013. This lesson served as my showcase lesson. During this lesson, students built their own terrariums to show the process of transpiration. Students were able to work in small groups to build their terrarium. At the end of the lesson, students visually represented their terrarium. They were asked to label all of the parts of their terrarium. I do believe that having the students work in groups was beneficial to the students. I had a diversity of students in my class and they all worked well together. I had one group that did get off topic but with effective questioning, I was able to bring them back to the discussion of transpiration. In the future, I know to separate two girls that I left in the same group. Next time, I want to be able to take more time learning about the learning styles and personalities of my students, so that I can make effective grouping decisions. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would want it to be a two-day lesson. Students would spend the first day simply going over the process of transpiration. The second day, students would design their own experiment. I think this would have been more beneficial that me just giving them a step-by-step lab. Overall, I think this went well, being my first lesson. The post assessment scores were surprising. Most students scored the highest score, being a 3. Professional Goals: As I progress and develop professionally, there are two goals that I would like to meet. The first one is learning to take a proactive approach to classroom management. I have been given all of the tools to meet this task, but I still would like that practice of actually implementing these strategies in a classroom. The second goal of mine is learning to implement effective transitions between contents as well as hallway transitions. I want to make the most of my instructional time and transitions can be a good tool for continuing that time or they can be a time where students have dead time and become unengaged. Critique of assessment lesson: I taught my second lesson on February 15, 2013. This lesson consisted of learning about vascular and nonvascular plants. Students took notes on the differences of the plants and then we did a short activity. During the activity, students worked in small groups to create a dance symbolizing the differences between the zylem and the phloem. If I could reteach this lesson, I would have more interactive parts. This lesson was most visual and not much was interactive. Looking back, I could have used think, pair, share a lot more during this lesson.

I taught my third lesson on February 14, 2013. This lab consisted of students studying the process of photosynthesis through a lab. Students used elodea, phenol red, and a light source to show the process of photosynthesis. Students worked in small groups throughout the lesson. I think this lab went very well on account of the strong questioning techniques that I used. Students stayed engaged and were able to incorporate art into this lesson. I think adding that art visual allowed students to see the process in a different way. Looking back on this lesson, this lab needed to be a two-day lab. Also, I made this lab a little more difficult than the other lab. I think that was beneficial. The students struggled with a new lab report, but after some time, they were able to finish the lab. I taught my fourth lesson on March 26, 2013. This lesson consisted of an interactive read aloud and a table topics activity. The class was learning about WWII, so I decided to teach on D-Day. I used the Diary of a General, Sidney Montz, as a primary resource. We read a couple of the entries and the class was given questions to listen for. Looking back, I wish I would have used more artifacts and pictures as resources to teach more on D-Day. I think having more visual aspects would have impacted the lesson in a positive manner. I also thought the use of a Prezi positively impacted the lesson. The class expected a PowerPoint presentation, so it gave them a different type of technology to become acquainted with. The only thing that would have made the Prezi better would have been to have more pictures and more visuals for the students. I taught my fifth lesson on March 27, 2013. During this lesson, students were about to move about the classroom to measure different household objects to the nearest eighth and quarter of an inch. Before this lesson, my cooperating teacher and I felt that it would be most beneficial for the students to use rulers that they would use on their PASS test. So, they used their small, sixinch rulers to measure the objects. Overall, I think this was the best lesson. It also incorporated the SSCA and EEDA. Students worked in groups to measure each of the objects and then at one station, the students had to brainstorm and formulate ten different careers in which the workers had to use measurements of some kind. Students remained engaged throughout the whole lesson. If I had to change anything about this lesson, I would incorporate the use of a timer. The timer would serve as a reminder, but it would also help me keep a good pace throughout the lesson.

Three Individual Student Reflective discussions: I chose three individual students to analyze their learning. I chose a high performing students, student number ten; an average performing student, student number eight; and a low performing student, student number four. I chose student number ten as my high performing student. This student excels in all subject areas. She is a motivated student and works very hard at every thing she

does. During the first lesson, she seemed tired and uninterested. After I asked if she was okay, she responded with rolling her eyes and telling me that she did not work well with one of the boys in the group. This is important to consider when making any group projects, because not everyone will work well together. I should have known that her personality would not work well with the other boy in the group. Next time I teach a lesson with a variety of groups, I will make sure to pay close attention to the grouping. Student number ten scored a met on the pre-assessment and a three on the post assessment. Her post assessment was very detailed and she correctly labeled all parts of her terrarium. I chose student number eight as my average performing student. This student normally performs well, especially in math and science. This student scored a met on the pre-assessment and a 2 on the post assessment. The visual representation of the terrarium that this student drew was not labeled at all. He did, however, include the measurement tool. During the lab activity, the student asked if he could go to the office, which was very odd. I attempted to ask him why, but he would not share any details. Then, I asked that he finish his drawing. He drew his terrarium and asked to leave. I allowed him to go. I chose student number four as my low performing student. This student scored a not met on the pre-assessment because he would not discuss anything with his partner and would not communicate to me. This student scored a 1 on the post assessment. During the lab, he played with his pencil and did not make any observations of the plant. At the end of the lab, he did attempt to draw the terrarium that his group made. Since he had a basic drawing with no labels, he was scored at a 1.