End of Semester Reflection

One thing that I will grow from in the past few weeks is being able to improve what I do with the results of formative assessment.  I had an observation last week, and although I received an overall highly effective rating, one piece of feedback I received was to do more with my formative assessment by actually pulling small groups out rather than bouncing around to those lower-performing individuals.  I definitely think this will be a challenge to manage in a class of 35, but this is definitely an area that I want to improve in domain 3.

I think that the biggest characteristic of an exemplary teacher is a genuine care for students; care, as in a focus on the betterment of the student in general, beyond just getting them to pass the class and master the content.  An exemplary teacher is going to have their students leave the class not only smarter in the content area, but a better person and a better member of society.  I believe that teachers who support their students to be successful in ALL of their classes, not just the teacher’s own, demonstrate exemplary status.  I also think exemplary teachers prioritize relationships with students and will do anything they can to better themselves to best serve their students.  One of the things that successful teachers do in my particular school population is being a good listener.  Our students want to feel heard and taking a minute to listen can make all the difference in classroom culture and relationship building. My goals for next semester will be to continue developing my blended learning toolbox and being able to change things up and constantly trying to improve my practice.  I want to support my students as the content difficulty increases and make sure to help them sustain their success across the board, not just in my class.