Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Task Four: Domain 3

Domain 4

Which component from this domain are you most comfortable with?

3b-Communication with students. Teachers communicate with their students through language, sometimes verbal language but body language as well. I feel that in my classroom I really make an effort to talk to my students to get a feel with how they perceive the everyday activities in my classroom. I always make sure that I target several different modalities. Instructions are always given in a variety of different ways. I always verbally speak the directions to them, write it on the white board and put the directions on the Smartboard for those visually impaired students who need text enlarged. With the directions posted in a variety of ways, students are aware of the expectations and know that everyone is required to complete the task. Setting these high expectations and communicating with my students they are all aware of what I want to see from them during the day.

Which component from this domain do you believe most strongly ties to instruction?

3c-Engaging students in learning. Learning happens when students are engaged. When you are able to grab their attention there are endless possibilities to what can happen in the classroom. There is a flow to the classroom as well, there is less behavior problems as well when students are engaged. When students are not engaged, lots of distractions can happen. I see this everyday working in a Special Education setting with 75% of my students that have a diagnosis of ADHD. Keeping them engaged is a full time job in itself. However, I am getting more creative and instruction happens when they are engaged. Engagement is everything ultimately!

Which component from this domain would you like to zero in on in your own instruction?

3d-Using assessment in instruction. Assessment has always been an important part of education and the more we use assessment the more we begin to see how assessment can play an even larger role that it already is. I often will assess students for knowledge of comprehension, but I have difficulty knowing what to do with those results. I may be targeting a specific skill, and when I am doing this I often do not know how to assess that skill in a non-traditional way. Assessment is something that I struggle with overall. I hope that the more I use assessments in the classroom and the more data that I collect, the easier it will be for me to transform that into hard data that shows learning happening.

2 comments:

  1. I struggle too, with how to use assessment to further their learning. Many times a Chapter test is the end of the unit, then we turn the page and more on to something else. I too wnat to find ways the assessments become part of learning and not the end of learning.

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