Reflections

1.

I can use the assessment page of my digital portfolio to report on my experiences during my first teaching block.  I could blog daily, weekly or after the block is finished. Weekly would probably be the best strategy to use since it would be an adequate enough timeframe to offer varied experiences from which to ‘report on’.  At the same time, it would be a relatively frequent period of reporting which would enhance the accuracy and credibility of the reporting. It would act like an anecdotal record of my teaching experience and I could use it to reflect on my experience as an ‘assessment as learning’ tool to reflect on and afford me the opportunity to notice what worked well, what didn’t and to think of how I can improve on what didn’t work well.

I could also use the assessment page as a digital file folder to curate assessment resources.  It could contain links, images or videos related to assessment practices or tools like rubrics along with my reflections on why I think the items can be useful in my practice as a teaching candidate. Adding these items to the digital portfolio would be a good way to store them for myself but also for others to access if they come upon my blog since all of these resources will be in one spot.  

2. 

The resource from my math class was a rubric that evaluated a 10 minute mini-lesson that I had to lead our class through.  This rubric would address the seven fundamental principles of Growing Success.  It is a fair, transparent and equitable tool since all students were evaluated using the same tool and it clearly outlined the success criteria in an objective way.  The bottom of the rubric contained a section for comments which allow the teacher to give specific feedback to improve student learning.  The rubric was clearly planned to reflect our learning goals while at the same time could be individualized for specific feedback. The feedback provided was clear and descriptive with points reflecting what we did well and what we could do to improve. The rubric was provided at the beginning of the assignment so that all students had a fair chance to develop their presentation in a way that met the success criteria.   Finally, each presenting student was evaluated by 2 other students in the class. This allowed students to develop their self-assessment skills by providing multiple perspectives on their presentation from which to reflect on themselves.  These multiple perspectives allowed students to acknowledge the consistency of constructive feedback and provided a basis for setting future goals related to areas of needed improvement.