Olivia Lile
Secondary Education
English Language Arts/History
Instruction
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
Artifact One
3a Communication with Students
This artifact is one instance of where I have communicated with a student. I am constantly working with my students in and out of the classroom. The students know to email me with any work that they may need or any questions that they may have. I share documents with the students electronically and make myself available to them as they may need my assistance.
This conversation was with a student who wanted some further explaination on the current assignment and some documents that she would use for that assignment.
Artifact Two
3b Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques
Over the course of the year I have had the goal of strengthening my own questioning and discussion techniques to include higher-order thinking questions for the students to use when interacting with a text. I have become familiar with Bloom's Taxonomy and Costa's, allowing me to have a reference when building my discussions.
With this artifact, the students were responsible for preparing for a Socratic Seminar. Each student was to answer the questions with textual evidence from The Great Gatsby and their own personal experiences. With the Socratic Seminar, the students are forced to look at literary devices and synthesize different meanings of the text. Creating these questions was difficult, yet by creating these text dependant questions I was able to structure the discussion, forcing the students to lead while I facilitate.
Artifact Three
3d Using Assessment in Instruction
In my classroom I like to incorporate both bellringers and exit tickets. Though I am refining my techniques, I tend to have positive outcomes when I have the students perform pre-writes and bellringers. This allows me to look at their background knowledge before we begin a topic. I use the information that I gain from their pre-writes to facilitate a discussion on the topic before we begin reading a new text.
This artifact was a pre-write and four-corners activity where the students had to look at American values. The pre-write focused around the question of what the students knew about morality, Wallstreet, and religion. Though it was vauge, the students told me what they believed and asked any questions that they had about some of the topic, as many did not know what Wallstreet was. The rationale was where the students then had to pick one of four corners: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equality, or the ability to have a successful career. I had them get up and talk in the four corners of the room with the other students that chose the same corner. The discussions were on topic and several students were able to argue their rationale.
By using these informal assessments, I am able to track my students progress and understanding. The students work well by having these entrance and exit tickets, providing me with what I may need to reteach or return to.
