Reflection #1

Impact on Student Learning Assignment

Through my teaching experiences, I have learned that being an educator is an incredibly humbling experience. Many times, I find myself thinking that students are all at point Z when in reality they are at points A, G, M, T, etc. I may think I know where students are at and where they should be, and I quickly learn that I can be wrong. Through these humbling experiences, I take a step back and find ways to reevaluate my own teaching styles to positively impact student learning. At the end of the day, I want all students to be at a certain level of understanding. With this, I find it important to have assessments that can show student growth. These assessments can be used as either checkpoints or end results for a unit. They help me to see the students grasp on material, and help me to shape future lessons to positively impact student learning. In the end, I want as many students to reach point Z as possible. The first work sample set I have is a pre and post-test on political participation. These were assessments given to my REI (Regular Education Initiative) Government classes. The pre-test was a verbal quiz I gave to students. They were previously aware that they had a quiz, so they could study the concepts that we had discussed up until that point. I gave this quiz as a sort of check point for the unit. This was one of the biggest units of the semester, so I wanted to make sure students were on the right track. This student received a 15.5 out of 25 points, which only comes out to a 62%. This student in particular always takes good notes and participates regularly, so this concerned me as an educator. I reevaluated my quiz and saw its flaws. When I graded the quiz, I made sure to add notes for students to see where their answer differed from what I wanted them to answer. After this quiz, I went back and re-explained the concepts a little deeper to steer the students in the direction I wanted them to be in. This would then better prepare them for the test at the end of the unit. A week later, I gave the students their test on political participation. From the results of the quiz, I was curious to see how students test scores would be. Overall, there was an incredibly positive result. This student in particular received an 88/96, which came out to a 92%. I truly believe the comments on the side helped students see what they needed to improve on. Also, my deeper explanation of the concepts positively impacted their test scores and understanding of the material. I learned a lot from this sample of work. First, I learned that when giving a pre-test I should make my questions clearer for the students. This was the first verbal quiz I have ever given, and the questions were clearer for some students rather than others. It also showed me what I should make students accountable for throughout the unit. It helped me see the areas of improvement that the students needed to work on and what I had to work on myself. By going back and explaining the concepts deeper, it really helped the students out for the test. As you can see, this student in particular went from a 62% on the pre-test to a 92% on the actual

test. When I plan any future unit, I can use this pre and post-test skill. It positively impacts the students learning, along with improving my educating skills. In my philosophy statement, I explain the importance of bringing real life examples into teaching. With teaching Government, I find this easy to do. In my Government classes, we do not even use the textbook. Government is so apparent in our lives and apart of our duty as citizens. I like to drive this home to my students, because it is a great way to avoid the why do we have to learn this, we will never need this in our life question. When I went back to reevaluate after giving this pretest, I thought of ways in which I could explicitly relate these concepts into students lives. For example, when I was explaining how propaganda is used, many students could not think of a real-life example. When I mentioned to them that commercials such as the Pro-Activ commercials on TV are examples of testimonial propaganda, their eyes lit up and they automatically understood the concept. This also helps when you teach a diverse group of students; because everyone can take a concept that they learn in my class and relate it to themselves in different ways. I teach REI classes, and I have students from all over the education spectrum. It is always interesting to see how one student can see a concept differently than another, but they both come to the same conclusion (that point Z that I discussed before). Through these strategies, I find that I can positively impact student learning in my present classroom and many classrooms to come. Reflection #2 Through my teaching experiences, I have learned that being an educator is an incredibly humbling experience. Many times, I find myself thinking that students are all at point Z when in reality they are at points A, G, M, T, etc. I may think I know where students are at and where they should be, and I quickly learn that I can be wrong. Through these humbling experiences, I take a step back and find ways to reevaluate my own teaching styles to positively impact student learning. At the end of the day, I want all students to be at a certain level of understanding. With this, I find it important to have assessments that can show student growth. These assessments can be used as either checkpoints or end results for a unit. They help me to see the students grasp on material, and help me to shape future lessons to positively impact student learning. In the end, I want as many students to reach point Z as possible. The second sample set I have is a pre and post evaluation on students knowledge of a map of Europe. I was about to start a unit on the Renaissance, and I found it important that the students should know where certain countries in Europe are because I would be talking about them in not only in the Renaissance unit, but for future units to come. So, I gave my students a map of Europe and had them fill in the countries and cities that they knew. They were provided a word bank with the countries and cities that they needed to fill in. Needless to say, the results were a bit shocking. Like I stated before, being an educator is an incredibly humbling experience. You think students should be at point Z when in reality they might be at

point A. This particular student only got one answer right out of a possible 28 answers. After giving this assessment, I realized that many of my students did not know much about geography at all. They had never had a geography class before, and did not have much of a clue to where countries are in the world. I figured if I am teaching a World History class, my students should have a decent grasp of where these countries are that I am talking about. So, after this I took a little bit of time out of the Renaissance unit to incorporate some geography. I took my students to the computer lab and had them work on multiple geography games. They loved being able to use the computers, and by the end of the hour had a great grasp on where these countries and cities were. I told the students where they could find these games and that they would be responsible for knowing where all these cities and countries were. A few days later, we went back to the computer lab and I gave my students this map again as a test. They had to type their answers, and could not use the internet whatsoever. The end results were a complete 180 from what the preevaluation was. This student in particular only got 2 answers wrong compared to her 1 answer right on the pre-test.

Sample Sets Sample Set #1

Sample Set #2