EDR 317

Final Personal Reflection

12/7/16
1. Professionalism: Exemplary
I gave myself exemplary for professionalism because I felt I was very on top of my
attendance and arrival throughout the semester. Whenever I had to miss a day of field, I made
sure to make it up either in that same week or the following week. There was an instance where
I knew ahead of time that I was not going to be able to attend a class, and made it up before I
even missed it. The one time I was late to seminar was due to a flat tire. Other than that, I was
on time every day. I treated every single member in the building, especially my students, mentor
teacher, and student teacher with respect. Even if I wasnt having the best day, I always
maintained a positive attitude whenever in the school and when communicating with my mentor
teacher. There was not a day I did not walk into my classroom with a smile, prepared and ready
to teach.
Goals for my future student teaching in this area are similar to that going into my reading
practicum experience. Since I am student teaching in Philadelphia, which I am not very familiar
with, I want to make sure I am prepared and knowledgable on my first day of school.I will do this
by taking a trip to my school one or two times before my first day to ensure I know exactly how to
get there, alternate routes, and to ensure I leave myself enough time. I think my interactions with
students in regards to respect and positivity have always been consistent, however, something I

can work on is knowing the right things to say when my class begins to get off topic to draw
them back to the lesson while still maintaining focus.
2. Relationship with Mentor Teacher: Exemplary
I think my relationship with my mentor teacher and student teacher this semester was the
best I have had thus far at West Chester University. They both had so many things to teach me
and I was willing and ready to learn from both of them. Every lesson plan was submitted to my
mentor teacher roughly 24 hours before it was to be taught, however, it was usually well before
24 hours. I also answered emails from my mentor teacher in a timely fashion. I was constantly
asking my teacher for feedback on what I can improve on in my lessons, especially when I was
having difficulty maintaining the focus of my small reading group. She had constructive criticism
to share with me both on my written lessons and implementation of lessons that I appreciated,
valued and implemented into my future lessons.
My mentor teacher was definitely one to throw me into situations without warning, which
taught me so much as a future teacher. Learning to adjust my lessons on the fly and to be
flexible is such an important aspect of teaching that I really learned a lot about this semester.
When I was not teaching, I still strived to be apart of the classroom. I walked around and
conferenced with students as they were reading independently, helped students improve their
writing, and even taught a social studies lesson on maps! I also attended the students
community day and field trip, both awesome experiences. Whenever I was confused or unsure,
I never hesitated to ask the student teacher or mentor teacher in my room. They were both so
willing and enthusiastic about helping me grow, I did not take this for granted and learned as

much as I could from them both. My goals for student teaching are just to develop the same type
of relationship with both of my mentor teachers for student teaching next semester.
3. Teaching and Interacting With Students: Developing
I feel I have grown so much as a teacher throughout this semester, but I still have so
much to learn. I developed engaging lessons that were interactive for my students, but I know
that as I continue to teach, my lessons are only going to get better and better. I think as a senior
going into student teaching next semester, I am right where I should be. However, I am aware of
how much room I still have to grow as a teacher, and even teachers who are veterans in the
classroom always have room to grow. Although I have an idea of my teaching pedagogy, I think
that is something that will develop once I have my own classroom and gain more and more
experience in teaching.
Going into student teaching I have 3 goals in this area. One is to work on my
differentiation in my lessons. I always had a differentiation aspect to my lesson, but I want to
make my modifications more specific and effective. My second goal is to incorporate more
technology into my lessons. Technology is something I stray from, but that can really add to my
lessons. Even using the smart board to play a review game as a form of assessment is a great
way to get students up and moving while still monitoring their understanding. My last goal is to
motivate students to be excited about learning. My anticipatory sets kept getting better
throughout this semester, and I have my student teacher and mentor teacher to thank for that.
Seeing a students face light up from excitement for your lesson is such an unexplainable
feeling. There is nothing more powerful than the excitement and readiness of students to learn.

Part II
Literacy Development:
1. From my experiences with my small reading group and conferencing with students, I learned
that every student develops at a different pace. There is some students in my classroom
who are reading H leveled books, and some students who are reading M leveled books. I
know all of my classes have told me this, but seeing the difference in students literacy
development first hand made me realize how important differentiation is in the classroom.
There is no way that one lesson, without modifications, could meet the needs of every
student in the classroom. One on one and group instruction is needed for every student in
order to grow as a reader.
2. Working with my small reading group twice a week also taught me that literacy development
is not something that is going to happen overnight. Strategies for reading need to be
modeled, practiced independently, practiced in pairs, and ultimately become a skill they use
in the classroom every day in order to be internalized by the students. My teacher spent
months on teaching students about making mental pictures in their head as they are
reading, and even to this day she is reminding students of the skill and using it during mini
lessons. Skills in the classroom should be implemented throughout the entire year in
meaningful ways.
Literacy Instruction:
1. For one, I learned that teaching a small reading group is a whole lot more work than it
sounds. In my experiences with substitute teaching, it is more challenging to teach a small

reading group than a whole class lesson. This is for several reasons. In small reading
groups, you must come up with a system to monitor responses for each child. In whole class
lessons, the children typically raise their hands or give a signal that they know the answer. In
small group lessons this is a bit more challenging. I think the talking chip system is a great
way to monitor the sharing amongst your group. It gets the students that want to share every
thought that comes to their mind to focus on what is important to share and what is not worth
using their talking chip. Giving the students an opportunity to share something with me about
themselves if they use all their talking chips motivates my students who do not participate
frequently to share their thoughts to the group.
3. I have also learned how greatly modeling increases students understanding of a skill. I have
seen it done almost every day for both reading and writing workshop. You can literally see
the lights going off in students minds as the teacher models the skills to the students. It is
one thing to describe making predictions as we read, you could describe making
predictions as clear as humanly possible, but until the students see it in action, they will not
be able to apply the skill. Modeling shows students not only how to use the skill, but what
you should be thinking why while you use the skill, why the skill is important, and what we
can learn from using the skill. Modeling is definitely something I will use in my future
classroom.
Literacy Assessment:
1. Conferencing with students is a great way to identify their strengths and roadblocks as well
as monitoring their progress. I conferenced with my case study three times throughout this

semester, this helped me get a really good idea of where she was at the beginning of the
year, what I could work on with her, and her progress throughout the semester. I also
conferenced with other students in my class, but mainly focused on my case study. If I were
to use conferencing in my every day classroom, I would definitely have to take detailed notes
of every student in order to keep track of everyones progress. Overall, conferencing is an
extremely authentic and effective way of assessing a childs reading, especially in the areas
of fluency and decoding.
4. Majority of the reading assessments I administered were formal assessments: worksheets,
projects, responses, and overall ability to meet the objectives in the lesson through
observation. Whenever I was in my classroom, I never saw a summative assessment being
performed for reading. The only summative assessment was a MAPs assessment that was
school wide to asses the childs reading level. My mentor teacher said that they are
administered once in the beginning of the year and once at the end. The one area of literacy
that I saw summative assessment in was phonics. They had a pre-assessment and postassessment for each content area. My major take away from my field experience on literacy
assessment is that sometimes summative assessments are needed, but these should be no
more then 3-4 times a year.