Danielson Rubric
Planning and Preparation
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1a. Demonstrating Knowledge of Content and Pedagogy
1b. Demonstrating Knowledge of Students 1c. Setting Instructional Outcomes 1d. Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources 1e. Designing Coherent Instruction 1f. Designing Student Assessments Before each unit, I make sure that I am familiar with the content and that the information I provide for my students is accurate based on my research. Throughout my research, I incorporate both primary and secondary sources and bring in a variety of primary sources into the classroom for students to use. Based on that research, I create lessons and activities that will prepare students for their assessment, whether that is informal or formal. Using facts and ideas from my research and the students' inquiry of the sources I provide for them, I design coherent instruction where students look at the facts in front of them and think critically to form their interpretation, opinion or understanding of the content. This second artifact represents what my units consist of. On the first day of the unit, I introduce the topic, in this case, the War of 1812, which I like is usually done with a "note session". I provide students with the general knowledge they need in order to be successful with the following activities. In this case, the "note session" day is followed by student research days, where students look at both primary and secondary sources and identify the pros and the cons of going to war with Britain. Essentially students were going to research whether the U.S. should remain neutral or go to war. Based on their research, students were to develop an opinion statement. Students were to act as James Madison's Secretary of War and convince the president to either go to war, or remain neutral. Planning activities like this where students use their research and act as something beyond a student in the classroom makes learning more meaningful and relevant. |
Classroom Environment
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2a. Creating an Environment of Respect and Rapport 2b. Establishing a Culture for Learning 2c. Managing Classroom Procedures 2d. Managing Student Behavior 2e. Organizing Physical Space The key to creating an environment of respect and rapport is creating an environment where students respect each other and their teacher. At VMS, I was able to create this environment through activities that encouraged students to be creative, think and have fun! The first artifact is an activity I used during my Stamp Act unit. To get away from the tense "lecture" environment, I created a simulation where I was "King Mr. Pedraza" and was imposing the "Class Act" on my student subjects. While the students joked about some of the ridiculous taxes, they formed "Class Act Congresses" and collaborated with their fellow delegates to form a response to the imposed taxes, much like the colonists did in response to the Stamp Act. Through this activity, I believe the students developed a culture for learning, an environment where they enjoyed their learning. |
Instruction
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3a. Communicating with Students
3b. Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques 3c. Engaging Students in Learning 3d. Using Assessment in Instruction 3e. Demonstrating Flexibility and Responsiveness Engaging students is key to their learning. For my first artifact, students were to consider an amendment from the Bill of Rights and analyze a scenario. Based on their amendment reading, they were to decide whether the case was Constitutional or Unconstitutional as a Supreme Court Justice. The students were to research the amendment in question, study a scenario and come to a decision/ruling. In this case, students become Supreme Court Justices. This activity was taken from my unit on the Texas War for Independence. One of the activities required that students read primary and secondary sources. The sources touched on various concepts, one of them being "Manifest Destiny". As they read the sources, students were to generate questions and were to create a hashtag to summarize, or emphasize a piece of information they retained from the text. After this activity, which lasted about two periods, I used the student generated questions to compile a set of questions that would be used to guide a Socratic discussion. Essentially the students were generating questions and hashtags that were going to be used for a Socratic discussion, a strategy I felt was more meaningful than students discussing teacher-generated questions. By doing this, the students were active participants of their learning and contributed to their assessment. My ability to communicate in Spanish through reading, writing and speaking has given me an upper hand in being able to engage my English Language Learners. I incorporate and emphasize cognate words in my Power Point lecture material and in differentiated work sheets. This artifact is what I provide for my ELL students. It gives students an overview of the topic in question. However, instead of giving the overview in Spanish only, I incorporate cognates and key words that the student should be able to comprehend by looking at it or using a dictionary. For example, if the student reads the term economy, the student should be able to connect that term with it's Spanish counterpart, economia. This not only introduces students to knew English vocabulary, but they're also exposed to the content being covered. Students are also asked to participate in class. For example, I introduce a unit by looking at images and ask students to record observations and their thoughts on the image. This gives ELL students an opportunity to participate and simply observe an image like their peers. |
Professional Responsibilities
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4a. Reflecting on Teaching
4b. Maintaining Accurate Records 4c. Communicating with Families 4d. Participating in the Professional Community 4e. Growing and Developing Professionally 4f. Showing Professionalism During my student teaching at Vallivue Middle School, I wanted to get familiar with what teaching entailed, in and out of the classroom. In the classroom, I provided student work with feedback, encouraged them to think further and graded their work in a timely manner. I got familiar with Infinite Campus at VMS and currently Skyward at Caldwell High School. I also embraced teacher feedback as that is what I used to improve myself as a teacher. Outside of the classroom, I took advantage of opportunities to attend departmental meetings, professional development and parent-teacher conferences. During parent-teacher conferences I was able to communicate with students and parents to which English was a second language. |