Felicia R. Goodman, PhD

• University Supervisor Feedback 1

• University Supervisor Feedback 2

• Mentor Teacher Feedback

• Pre/Post Assessment Plan

• Artifacts of instructional practice

  • Formative assessment example 1

  • Formative assessment example 2

  • Summative assessment example 1

  • Summative assessment example 2

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I believe that everyone is capable of learning, but not everyone is capable of teaching. Or, at least, teaching well. My justification is that teaching involves more than just breaking down or chunking complex ideas into more easily understandable pieces: it also involves making course content more meaningful, relatable, and/or useful to the students. In order to do that, teachers have to develop relationships with their students, i.e. get to know them on a personal level. Only when the teacher knows about their students likes, dislikes, struggles, strengths, and accomplishments can a teacher effectively design and implement curricula that not only maintains the students’ attention, but convinces them of the value and utility of the course content. For example, at the beginning of each semester, my students participate in several ice breakers and complete several surveys, which allowed me to gauge likes and dislikes as well as course and career-related goals. These activities revealed an extraordinary amount of diversity in a seemingly homogenous population from strictly a racial or ethnic standpoint. Students also expressed interest in business and entrepreneurship – one student talked about wanting to own and operate his own barbershop – as well as desires to become artists (including, but not limited to, music and graphic design), politicians, and medical doctors or other healthcare professionals. Armed with this knowledge, I was able to tailor questions to students’ interests, and find real-life examples of biology-related phenomena that applied to their everyday lives.

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I know that a lesson is working well when my students are awake and attentive; when they ask insightful, clarifying questions that explore relationships between the concept being discussed and other worldly phenomena; and when they can answer the majority quiz and/or test questions correctly. I know that a lesson plan isn’t working well when my students are bored and/or fall asleep during class; when they do not ask questions or, if they do, they are confined to asking me to explain the material again; and when they cannot answer the majority of quiz and/or test questions correctly.

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Research suggests and personal experience supports the idea that student engagement is malleable, and its capacity varies as a function of both time and context (Shernoff, 2013). While I cannot control the duration of the class period, i.e. 90-minute block scheduling, I can control the number, duration, and frequency of breaks allotted during the class period. While I cannot control whether or not a student has gotten enough sleep or food to eat, I can create a safe and engaging learning environment in which the student is most likely to succeed. While I cannot control the content standards that I have to teach, I can control how that information is presented to the students.

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Science courses at the high school level are dominated by so-called traditional, teacher-focused instructional modalities such as lectures. As a former graduate student and teaching assistant, it is also the teaching method with which I am most familiar. However, there is evidence that suggests people process and retain information differently. The manner or condition in which an individual prefers to or most effectively learns is commonly referred to as a learning style (Tanner & Allen 2004). The most common classifications of learning styles that I have found are visual (spatial), aural (auditory-musical), verbal (linguistic), physical (kinesthetic), and logical (mathematical), social (interpersonal), and solitary (intrapersonal). Tailoring teaching styles to improve student learning outcomes. For example, research from Kalyuga, Ayres, Chandler, & Sweller (2003) suggests that novices learn better from studying examples, whereas those with more expertise learn better by solving problems themselves, and introducing students to information using multiple formats improves retention of said information in long-term memory (Settlage & Southerland, 2012).

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Over the course of my student teaching, I have done my best to move away from teacher-centered, direct instruction – which primarily benefits auditory and, to a certain extent, verbal and/or visual learners – to include more student-centered kinesthetic and/or inquiry-based instruction, which benefit a greater variety of learners. My most effective kinesthetic assignments include, but are not limited to: the naked egg lab in which students see the effects of several common hypo-, hyper-, and isotonic household substances on an egg which has had its shell dissolved away; the predator-prey lab in which students play a modified game of freeze tag in which students model the relationship between deer and wolf populations; and the exercise lab in which students measure their own respiration and carbon dioxide  production rates before and after engaging in bouts of high-intensity exercise.

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REFERENCES

1. Kalyuga, S., Paul Ayres, Paul Chandler, & John Sweller (2003). "The Expertise Reversal Effect." Educational Psychologist 38(1): 23-31.

2. Settlage, J. & Southerland, S.A. (2012). Teaching Science to Every Child: Using Culture as a Starting Point (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

3. Shernoff, D. J. (2013). Optimal learning environments to promote student engagement. New York: Springer.

4. Tanner, K., and Allen, D. (2004). Approaches to Biology Teaching and Learning: Learning Styles and the Problem of Instructional Selection—Engaging All Students in Science Courses. Cell Biology Education, 3(4), 197–201.