Teaching Self-Assessment

In Pennsylvania,  I made personal goals for myself as a beginning teacher during my midterm. These goals were classified under the Penn State Teacher Education Performance Framework. There are four domains, and each one was given a goal. Now, I'm reflecting on how I did at meeting those goals in my host nation.

Planning and Preparing for Student Learning: -->

Relate difficult concepts to students personal lives.

Create short and long range opportunities for assessment. This can be completed when I create my unit plan.

I have planned and prepared many different lessons for many different grade levels here in Spain. I do my best to reference what I know about the students' personal lives to my teaching. I've noticed that when I do make the material relate-able, the students become more engaged and succeed more. For example, back in Pennsylvania I related the concept of "landmarks" "symbols" and "heroes" to the students during my unit plan, "People Long Ago." I saw great success in the students understanding when I did this, so it's clear that this strategy works wonders. I try to do this as much as possible throughout subject areas, and it works. I ask students to relate things they read to their personal lives, new vocabulary words to their personal life, making predictions to their personal lives, etc. Students are young. They like to talk about themselves. This is how students grow as learners and as people - by making real life connections.

In Spain, I have continued this strategy in my practice. When I taught lessons on health and fitness, I ask students what their favorite way to exercise is. I involved the students and created a common background knowledge by exercising with the students during class. We then could relate what we did to the proper ways to stay fit and healthy (warm-up, play sports, drink water, stretch when we finished). I planned to do this in order for students to have this common background knowledge to relate to!

With older students, we have been talking about likes and dislikes. To make this more interesting and more relate-able to students, we surveyed each other in English about what kinds of movies students liked. With the older students, we reported our results to the class. By having the students question each other on a topic they really enjoy, the results were thorough and the student engagement during class time was very high.

Teaching:  -->

Find teachable moments and elaborate on them.

Create multiple ways to assess learners, as per my unit plan. 
Teachable moments happen daily. Whether it's two students getting in an argument and the teacher must intervene, or a student simply asks an uncalled for question, these moments can be acted upon for students to learn even more than the teacher had planned. 

Right when I arrived, I had to introduce myself to the classes. Twelve different classes. And they all had curiosities about what my life was like in the United States. Some of the older students know how to ask questions in English to find out information about a person, and some of the younger kids asked the questions in Spanish. Either method, I had no clue what was coming to me! In 6 de primaria, one of the students asked what my favorite sport was. I said basketball, and he proceeded to ask why. Well, I then began the story of how my dad played in the NBA (Hi dad!! Love ya!). The kids were fascinated by this. I decided that I would plan a lesson on the NBA and basketball in general. I'm even going to use my dad's Wikipedia page in order for the students to have the opportunity to read in English and learn vocabulary words about basketball. I will do this lesson on Wednesday, and I'll let you know how it goes. 

As for creating multiple ways to assess learners, I did that back at home with my unit plan, "People Long Ago." I had students do projects that assessed the objectives better than simply giving an exam. Here, I have had the students create things, such as menus, and practice speaking by giving oral presentations. These different ways to assess have been fun and rewarding for both the students and myself.

Analyzing Student Learning and Inquiring into Teaching:
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Create long-term assessments for students in order to show growth and meet objectives.

Collect data systematically and change instruction depending on these results. 
Ask any Penn State Education student, this is one of the most difficult domains to meet. Luckily, we have assignments that require use to analyze student learning and inquire into teaching. I wrote a paper reflecting on my unit plan in its entirety after I taught it. That paper, which went into great detail, spanned over six pages and reflected on students growth and how they met objectives. I also reflected on my teaching after each lesson in the unit. Therefore, that unit helped me reach my goals in this domain.

Here in Spain, I've been reflecting on my lessons as well. I'm also writing these weekly blog entries reflecting on my teaching! Also, being exposed to many teaching styles in many different levels has helped me inquire into teaching.  

Fulfilling Professional Responsibilities:
--> Maintain community involvement with teachers, parents, and students. 
I am "La profesora nueva de los Estados Unidos." Since I go to every class in this school, every student has had this opportunity to talk to me and be a student in my lessons. Since many parents drop off and pick up their students every day, I've been able to say hello and introduce myself. Many parents have said that they heard from their children that a teacher from the United States is in their school now, and they are very excited about it. I feel appreciated with this role, therefore I aspire to maintain a positive image for the students, parents, and the rest of the community.

The teachers at the school have been nothing less than amazing. They are welcoming and helpful. Even teachers that I don't work with directly have been comforting and sweet to me when I encounter them in the hallways. In turn, I try to help and be nice back to them. As I've mentioned before, I help teachers with English. I have been involved in out of school activities, such as an Open House. I've even been in a radio commercial for the school ;). I am so thankful for Colegio Santisimo Rosario for welcoming me with open arms, so I am doing the best that I can to give back to them by being a positive role model and a part of the community.

Wow. I write a lot. I'm so sorry. 

What I Did This Week:
1 Infantil: We talked about big vs. little and common classroom items (crayons, chair, desk). I also read and translated the story, "Koko the Clown."
2 Infantil: Farm Animals
Cono 1: They took their exam on healthy eating. Next week we move onto family. 
Cono 2: Introduction to celebrations, decorated the room for Christmas, learned about Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve, New Year's Day, Three Kings Day, and Boxing Day.
Ingles 2: Reviewed for Unit 1 & 2 test by using a worksheet that I made.

Worksheet to review family members, clothing items, and colors.

Other side. Also reinforced the phrase, "I've got/(S)he's got"

Ingles 3: International Restaurant Boulevard Project (see post below or click on the link!)
Cono 4: Lesson on Exercise and Safety, helped them practice their Christmas Performance
Ingles 4: Reviewed for an upcoming exam
Ingles 5: Lesson on likes and dislikes of food. We created food poems, too!
Ingles 6: Questions & Answers, decided that next week we would talk about basketball. 
Ingles 1 ESO: I helped give the students' English Speaking Exam. That made me nervous because I had never given one before. Choosing grades was difficult, but the cooperating teacher helped a bit.
Ingles 2, 3, and 4 ESO: Surveyed each other on likes and dislikes in movies, then worked on reporting data "The majority of students/Many students/Almost no one, etc."

This is where 2, 3, and 4 of ESO students recorded their responses

The questions that 2, 3 and 4 ESO asked each other.

Phew! We also didn't have class on Thursday because it was La dia de la constitución española, a national holiday. That was a nice break.

This weekend, another American, who is here teaching at a different school, and I went to Salamanca. It's a beautiful city about an hour and a half away. We took a bus and did typical sightseeing. It was a lot of fun and it was a beautiful day! There is a University there, so obviously I bought a "Universidad de Salamanca" sweatshirt  : )

Well, sorry for writing so much! I hope that this did not bore you and you are still going to read future entries! :)

Un besito,
Kate