Dear Future Educator & Peer,

Welcome to the world of teaching. You will learn that educators speak a hidden language, but the
best ones know how to uncover that language and make it meaningful for anybody wanting a glimpse into
the teacher life. Your instructors here at Alverno are the latter: the cream of the crop. With their guidance
and support you will grow to understand and implement the Wisconsin Standards for Teacher Licensure
and Development, the Alverno Education Department Outcomes of the Major (Education Abilities),
frameworks of teaching, and more. I know the last sentence was a mouthful. Dont worry. Allow me to
introduce you to the standards and show you how I have grown and integrated these understandings of
teaching in my own work.
First, lets chat about standards in general. Standards are created to set an acceptable and
desirable level of quality or achievement. These achievements allow others to make judgments about an
individuals work. I dont know about you, but this sounds a lot like the learning here at Alverno. Teachers
set the criteria. We, as students, desire to rise to the challenge and meet the criteria. After the assignment
is completed, we self-assess. How could we self-assess without the criteria? How would we measure the
quality of our work? We wouldnt be able to without having the criteria and that is why the standards are
important. We need the standards to measure the quality of our work which allows us to develop over
time. To become a good teacher we must assess our work and we do that through the standards and
abilities.
My first encounter with the Education Abilities occurred in ED-201. We consistently discussed and
analyzed the Education Abilities. In fact, we worked in groups to create visuals for each ability. I
remember that my group created a visual on integrative interaction; we drew a circus and discussed how
each member of the circus worked together to create an experience the audience wouldnt forget. Each
member of the circus represented a education ability because we realized that integrative interaction is
the ability to use the standards in unity to develop the students as learners. The student was the ring
master and dictated what was taught; the teacher was the clown as we felt like part of our job was to
entertain students. Time has passed and my understanding of integrative interaction has deepened. I
know our visual did not fully explain integrative interaction. There is no way the teacher is the clown

because our job isnt to entertain, although we can be entertaining; our lessons can be entertaining, but
we want students to be engaged with their learning. This doesnt mean students dictate what lessons are
taught like a ring master, but teacher and students collaborate like co-pilots. So yes, Ive grown in my
understanding of integrative interaction and have found a way to intertwine my teaching philosophy with
this standard, but I have also grown in my understanding of the Education Abilities.
A teacher should display the characteristics of the Education Abilities in every lesson and almost
every interaction with students. I say, almost every interaction with students, because
conceptualization focuses more on content knowledge and how students learn rather than a personal,
non-content, encounter with students. To illustrate this idea about displaying the characteristics in every
lesson and encounter I will focus on one ability: diagnosis. Diagnosis is another word for assessing. Did
you know a teacher assesses all day and that assessment should guide your teaching? Right now I bet
your thinking that I mean test students to the moon and back, but that is far from the truth. Each
encounter with a student provides an opportunity for a teacher to understand a student more. To properly
diagnosis a students needs, a teacher must observe student behavior: get to know her students. A
teacher couples knowledge of her students and knowledge of how her students learn best in order to
create meaningful and engaging learning experiences. Sometimes those learning experiences are not
content driven, but relational. For example, in my third field I taught a lesson on analyzing a theme in a
story. Before I taught the content of the lesson, I discussed blocking behaviors with the small group of
students who were above the eighth grade reading level. From past encounters and observations, I knew
the small group I worked with had difficulty listening to one another and disagreeing respectfully. My
lesson included group discussions that I knew would be thwarted if I did not expose these behaviors. After
the lesson, students self-assessed on their learning and three out of the five wrote about blocking
behaviors. I was able to diagnosis student behavior before a lesson. I used this knowledge to create an
environment in which students were able to engage without blocking behaviors; for blocking behaviors to
diminish we also used the saying, home-court, to remind students we were a learning team. Any student
was allowed to use this word as needed and believe me, the students used it well.

In ED-201 I also encountered the state teacher standards. We used the state standards for our
final presentation and project. For my project I focused on the standards that referred to building a
relationship with students. One of standard tens dispositions states, The teacher is concerned about all
aspects of a childs well-being (cognitive, emotional, social, and physical), and is alert to signs of
difficulties. This means the teacher knows her students and is able to detect when something is wrong.
Part of detecting difficulties comes with being able to diagnosis behavior. To properly diagnosis the needs
of your students you need to build a relationship with them. Dont you think the previous sentence sounds
familiar? I referred to the idea of diagnosis and relationship building in the previous paragraph. I mention it
again because when I first started learning about teaching I didnt realize the connection between
diagnosis and knowing your students. I spent almost every semester interviewing teacher friends about
diagnosis and assessment. One of my close friends brought it home for me. As I interviewed her she used
her current students to show me her meaning. She modeled to me what assessing all day looks like. As
each student approached her desk she whispered to me why they were coming; she based her diagnosis
on previous encounters with her students. Without fail, she was right. One student came up for
reassurance. Another student was confused about the directions which she didnt mind rephrasing in
order for him to understand. On a consistent basis a teacher is assessing emotions, behavior,
characteristics and more which do not go into the grade book. Can you believe this took me a while to
understand?
Over time the abilities and standards have become more natural. I might not have the standards
or abilities memorized, but I know how to use my resources coordination to get the information I need.
I am able to diagnosis and evaluate my own progress in understanding and implementation of the
standards and abilities. One tip I can give you is to consistently relate the standards and abilities to each
other and be honest with yourself. In fact, one of the state standards says the teacher is able to evaluate
her own work. We get a lot of practice with this at Alverno. Dont take it for granted.
Yours Truly,
Cecilia Marrero