Before this class, my philosophy of adaptation may have sounded more like how do we accept and make the most out of change and flourish through adapting. However, now with a stronger leadership mindset, adaptation means being a leader, whether a small or big role, during the change. Not only do you need to be a strong leader, but also shift your perspective.
Leadership can make or break adaptation, which puts greater emphasis on what it means to be a leader. My vision statement is that we change, adapt, and grow in order to inspire, nurture, and guide. As for perspective, this can do more than being a great leader. If we change our perspective, we often can see through to the other side or become more transparent ourselves. I learn from others and what they do and do not do. If there is one takeaway from what I have learned in my first year of teaching it is that I need to have an open-minded perspective. I watch those who have taught for years with perhaps a more closed mindset and their perspective skews the good to do more harm. I know that as a leader, my perspective needs to be that change is okay, and change needs to be talked about. When we adapt, we should adapt as a cohort rather than individually. Adapting is not just accepting. Adapting is shifting your perspective to gain the benefits of the change.
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Even though my cohorts teach a range of ages and subjects, it is nice to see how similar our units are in terms of how we evaluate and what we consider important.
Gerald pointed out that pre and post tests are the best way to show that learning occurred. I completely agree with this and its effectiveness. Though I would like to have strictly performance assessments, these lack the ability to see exactly how much learning happened. I am excited to see how much students gained with the post-test. I always battle this question, should I be giving the same or slightly different post test for my second graders? Other points in this week’s question that brought new insight was thinking about how I can show my evidence. Is there some way to compile this information on a graph-- or just stick to taking pictures of the assignments? These are little details that I will figure out in the upcoming days. Ways I contributed to this week's topic was talking about my different forms of assessment. A few people commented on exit tickets and Kahoot by either agreeing they enjoy those forms or asking more questions about how I use them. Passing on tools and strategies is the best way to improve any teaching practice, so I am always happy when I learn from others and pass on that knowledge. Knowing that I am reporting my evidence back to this cohort is making what I do much more meaningful-- or maybe I’m hyper aware? Each lesson that I teach about money I intentionally create ways for them to show their understanding and how much more they understand compared to the day before.
Ways I have been able to do this are by assessments, observations, exit tickets, and quick checks. I started out the unit with a pre-assessment and the highest score was 67%. Since that point, I have been using Kahoot or paper assessments to gauge their understanding. This has greatly shaped the pace of the lesson and what I teach each day. I have been using Prodigy- an online game- regularly and using the data it automatically collects to steer learning. At the end of week 1, Prodigy is able to show me that over 70% of the class is still struggling with identifying dimes, nickels, and pennies. This will be a focus area coming into this next week. Other types of evidence of learning I have for this unit include, mini-projects (money foldable, books, and games), and pictures. Students are on track for the pacing of my unit and this is all because I analyzed every bit of data/information. The next steps are to introduce the performance project and encourage them to use technology to create a game based on money. This week was equally great and challenging as I started my unit. I have never taught money before and although I knew my students have never been taught this concept, I underestimated how basic I would have to make it. Through the learning moments and mistakes, I am really excited to see the amount of growth by the end of this unit.
A few challenges that I noticed this week were:
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Author2nd Grade teacher at Keet Gooshi Heen in Sitka, Alaska Archives
April 2017
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