Works With Students as Individuals
Description of Standard: Teachers accept and value what students bring to school and scaffold learning by using students’ prior knowledge, prior life experiences, personal life goals, role models, values, and talents. This requires learning about students through observation, interaction, and discussion with parents and colleagues, as well as adapting curriculum when necessary.
Abstract: Before they can create comfortable classroom environments and tailor their lessons to their particular classes, teachers need to learn about their students’ needs and interests. This means communicating with students and their families, observing students’ behavior and interactions, and giving students opportunities to share their experiences and passions. Through the following artifacts and the experiences they represent, I was able to learn more about my students as individuals and create invaluable opportunities for student participation and creative expression.
Literacy Inquiry Project
At the beginning of the school year, I surveyed my focus class students regarding their literacy skills, practices, and preferences, and I learned about the range of students’ literacy experiences. These findings are documented and organized in my Literacy Inquiry presentation. Also, this artifact illustrates how I planned to incorporate students’ prior literacy experiences, skills, and practices within my curriculum. For instance, I noticed that the majority of my students watch television and movies frequently, so I created the Contemporary Romanticism essay assignment, which allowed students to tap into some of their media knowledge. This assignment asked students to find and analyze a contemporary text (movie, television episode, song, novel, etc.) that illustrates at least three different characteristics or elements of Romanticism. I encouraged students to select a text they love, thereby granting me the opportunity to learn more about students’ interests and expert knowledge.
Using Case Analysis to Learn About Students
As part of one of my graduate teacher education courses, I was required to analyze and respond to one of my more “difficult” or harder-to-reach students. For this Case Study Analysis, I selected “Paige” (pseudonym), an introverted student who rarely participated in class. The Case Study documents include an unbiased description of Paige’s behavior, possible hypotheses regarding her behavior in English 12, a plan of action for addressing her behavior, and an evaluation and reflection of my accommodations and responses. Through observation, research, and thoughtful scaffolding, I was able to increase Paige’s participation in class and learn more about the multiple intelligences she brought to the classroom. What’s more, this case study helped me to understand some of the needs of introverted students and the practices that can promote more student participation in general.
Passion Poetry Assignment and Student Example*
The Passion Poetry assignment fulfills several different purposes. First, this assignment allowed me to assess students’ use of poetic devices and figurative language. Additionally, I wanted students to exercise their public speaking and communication skills, and the Passion Poetry event seemed ideal for this objective. Finally, this assignment gave students an opportunity to share their ambitions and passions with the class. In other words, this assignment combined students’ interests with academic skills! Of course, revealing one’s passion and allowing oneself to be vulnerable in front of others can be extremely difficult, but the majority of students appreciated the Passion Poetry event and enjoyed learning more about their peers. Through each spoken word performance I was able to learn more about that speaker’s passion and talents. The student example below demonstrates an individual student’s passion in action, and his performance reveals his creative abilities and skills as a writer and speaker. Indeed, the Passion Poetry event was a celebration for all the poets and their passions that day, and it also fostered our classroom community.
Click here to view the Passion Poem checbric. (This checbric allows students to choose which performance criteria they would like to be graded on!)
*The student gave me his permission to post his performance.