Pre-edTPA Practice Task 2 Assignment

Licensure Area

Example: Candidate Response

Elementary Education Candidate

I believe in creating a positive and engaging learning environment for all of my students. This means establishing a relationship based on mutual respect. Throughout the video clip, from Lesson 2, I display this rapport and respect for all of my students. At the very beginning of the video clip, a couple of my students “silent celebrate” as I begin to tell them about the Retelling Sticks task. Students do this to show excitement in a manner that does not disrupt the teacher or instruction. I made sure to acknowledge these students appropriate behavior because most of the students in this class are eager to please. I also reward these students by selecting them to be involved in the task. I made sure to include a variety of students to participate in the Story Retelling task. This was a simple way to evaluate understanding and progress of some students, such as my ESOL students and struggling readers. As some of the students struggled to retell their portion of the story, I did not negative reprimand them for not knowing the answer, nor did I give them the answer(s). Rather, I re-stated the question to help them better understand and arrive at the correct response. For example, the ESOL student who had the Characters stick, misunderstood my prompt, “I recall from the story, the characters were…” She stated what the students were doing at the beginning rather than who the characters were in the story. Therefore, I needed to restate the questions in order for her to understand, but I did not give her the answers. The student did not get discouraged from my redirection, but rather took it and was able to appropriately answer the question. Another example of my positive rapport, respect, and responsiveness towards students can be seen with another student at 4:12 in the video clip for Lesson 2. The student was to describe what happens at the middle of the story. The student did so, however, he continued to retell what happened at the end of the story, too. However, I did not respond to him negatively for retelling more than he should. I simply gave him a silent gesture, and whispered, “but we aren’t there yet,” in a playful voice. The student did not feel discouraged, but rather playfully covered his mouth. Finally, I gave one student a key details stick, at 5:37, however, he was able to give an appropriate answer even after several redirections. Therefore, I sought out help from another student on the carpet. I chose to do so because I could tell the student was becoming discouraged, and would likely not respond with the appropriate answer. However, I did not make this student sit down because I did not want to further discourage him. Each time a student came up to describe his/her portion of the story, I allowed them to speak freely, only redirecting if needed. I did not show negativity for incorrect answers. Instead, I gave cues to lead them to the right answer by restating the previous student’s response or describing their particular task. This challenged the students to be active thinkers because I did not simply give them the answers If they did not know.

Secondary Candidate

I always strive to maintain a positive learning environment in the classroom by encouraging class discussion and by encouraging students to do their best and strive for success. I also show respect to each student and expect that they show respect to one another as well. In Clip 2, when a student named Jack gives a wrong answer at 1:20, I tried to quiet the students who responded inappropriately as quickly as possible and allowed someone at Jack’s table to help him rather than make a big deal over a wrong answer or dwell over it. I try to compliment students who answer correctly or who strive for success by volunteering to participate, as seen in 3:13 of Clip 1 and 1:13 of Clip 2. I also create a positive learning environment by allowing for students who need an accommodation to have whatever assistance they may need. For example, in Clip 2 there are two students who can be seen sitting at the front table rather than in a desk. These students know that they can move when a time of direct instruction begins because they can see or hear better from there than at their seat. Finally, I seek to always challenge all students to engage in learning. For example, rather than always taking volunteers, which are often the same students again and again, I drew popsicle sticks on “Stop and Review.”

Special Education Candidate—Commentary prompt 3.a

Although I’m only with these students for eight short weeks as one of my two student teaching placements, I have worked hard to show my students that I respect them. I welcome all questions asked throughout the video clip. An example of this in the video is at 1:19:19:19. Students do not hesitate to ask their questions because of the respect we have developed together. The students are also comfortable sharing their answers with the class, even if it is a different answer than the other student. This is because I have ensured that this is a safe setting where students will not be judged for their thoughts or answers. When students get a correct answer, I praise them. An example of this in the video is at 4:36.

I also have good rapport with the learners. For some reason, the SMARTboard in the classroom does not work well for me. It will freeze, won’t let me write, or it will not let me click onto the next slide (as shown in the video). However, one student (the absent student) seems to have the magic touch, and the SMARTboard always works for her. The students like to give me a hard time about this and think it is really funny. In the video, there are a few instances of us joking around saying the SMARTboard would be working for the absent student if she was there. An example is at 11:09.

Licensure Area

Example: Candidate Response

Elementary Education Candidate

I chose to do the Story Retelling Sticks task with students in Lesson 2 because it was an activity that heavily involved students and required all of them to stay engaged throughout the entire task. Students who were responsible for describing a portion of the story had to remain engaged in order to appropriately answer. They had to remember and consider what the student(s) said before them in order to retell their portion of the story that came next. If not, the student may have repeated what another student already said or may skip over parts. Students who were not actively involved in the retelling “train” still had to remain attentive and engaged because they may have been called on for help/assistance at any point. This happened in the video clip for Lesson 2, at 6:06. If the student on the carpet had not been engaged in the activity, she would not have been able to assist the struggling student by describing the key detail. In Lesson 3, focusing on sequenced retelling, I model for students an inappropriate and appropriate sequenced retelling. This kept students engaged because the first retelling was rather silly because it was all out of order. Then I modeled for students an appropriately sequenced retelling while I used the sequencing vocabulary. Having students participate in the learning task in Lesson 2 allowed students to practice the essential literacy strategy and those related skills. Students were able to practice describing parts of the story to create a retelling with their classmates. It was also a great visual showing each part plays an important role in retelling the story because each student was a needed link in the “train.” The oral modeling of a sequenced retelling I did for the students exposed them to an accurate and inaccurate retelling. I made sure to do the out-of-order retelling first to grab their attention because I knew they would think it was silly and incorrect. Once I had their attention, I was able to introduce and implement the sequencing vocabulary in an accurate retelling.

Secondary Candidate

Throughout the unit, one way in which students develop inquiry, interpretation, and analysis skills is through discussion questions. In Clip 1, from 0:30 to 2:14, students are seen discussing a question with the people at their tables. The question, asked at 0:19, is “if a country wanted to keep strict control over the lives of their citizens, how might they go about this?” This question does not ask specifically about a key point we are learning about, but rather requires students to draw their own conclusions and analyze possibilities by discussing ideas with their classmates or by interpreting material that they have previously studied. For example, at 0:28, a student named David answers the question by saying “kill them.” He answered in this way in order to get his classmates to laugh. After David says this, I quickly try to redirect his answer and the class by asking, “kill who?” (0:32). In his second response, David explains that he meant they may kill people who rebel against them, and then mentions China and North Korea as examples, drawing on his knowledge from previous study (our history unit covered events in which this happened in China such as the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square). This also shows a way in which students learn to build stronger arguments or conclusions by providing support for their reasoning. In David’s case, he knew why a country trying to have strict control might kill some of its own citizens. However, he needed to realize that he needed to say more than that in order to have an argument, otherwise his conclusion would most likely be interpreted incorrectly.

Special Education Candidate-­‐ Commentary Prompt 4.a

Engaging and Motivating the Focus Learner

Because the learning environment consist of a small classroom setting, the focus learner is easily engaged. I can more frequently call and him to answer questions, and there is a lot of in-class participation as seen in the video at 4:19. The focus leaner strives in this setting compared to a large, inclusion class. A specific strategy I use to engage the focus learner is by calling him on name to answer a question as seen in the video clip at 4:20. Because it is such a small group, I can have the students easily take turns answering questions or solving problems on the SMARTboard.

The focus learner also responds well to technology. He is much more focused when we use the SMARTboard compared to a regular white board. He likes to see how items on the SMARTboard can move with a finger as shown at 2:08 and 4:20. This causes him to be more engaged throughout lessons.

Licensure Area

Example: Candidate Response

Elementary Education Candidate

The video clip from Lesson 2 highlights my efforts to promote and extend on student responses to promote thinking and apply the essential literacy strategy. The Story Retelling Sticks activity, shown in the clip from Lesson 2, puts the students at the center of the task and learning. After introducing key details/event as the newest component of retellings, I challenged students to create a retelling “train”. Individual students are responsible for retelling a certain element of the story, and by the last student we would have completed the retelling with key details. This activity required all students to remain engaged, whether they served as a piece of the retelling train or an audience members. Students who were responsible for a story element must accurately recall information from the story to correctly describe their part. To do so, these students had to be engaged to how and what the students before them described in order to appropriately add to the retelling train. This promoted thinking and ability to apply the skill, retell, because it required students to actively follow along, apply what their peers had already described, and add to the retelling with the next appropriate portion. If students struggled to describe the their story element, I prompted them with questions such as, “Where did the story take place?” or “What happened after Miss Nelson said something had to be done?” I also reiterated what the student before described in order to reactivate thinking about the story. If the student could not describe the next story element appropriately for the retelling after these prompts, as a last resort, I would ask a student in the audience to assist. This kept the students who were not actively participating engaged because there was still a chance they could be called on to retell a portion of the story. Each student’s response had to build on one another to create an accurate retelling; therefore, students had to be engaged throughout the entire activity. I encouraged students to use their peer’s responses to guide their description of their story element. I also encouraged students to visualize what happened next in the story to help them arrive at a correct description of their story element.

Secondary Candidate

Throughout the unit, there are several ways in which I encourage students to build on their interpretations and analyses. An example of this can be seen in Clip 1 when discussion questions were incorporated in the lesson. In the clip, I guided class discussion in order to deepen student learning by affirming their reasoning and then asking further questions to get them to dig deeper. For example, in Clip 1 at 3:38, a student named Sarai answers that a government may limit internet access if they wanted to control their citizens. At that point, she did not offer a reason why, but I directed the conversation in order for another student to contribute to the idea by providing an insightful reason as well as an example. As mentioned above in items 3 a. and b. in David and Kasey’s answers, I try to also incorporate specific questions that direct the students to develop stronger arguments. I also encourage students’ ability to form interpretations and build arguments by having students write about a topic or question. There were two main writing assignments in this unit (the paragraph in Lesson 2 and the newspaper article in Lesson 3) in which students developed their interpretations and arguments about Chinese government and Japanese government. Samples of student work on these assignments will be provided.

Special Education Candidate—Commentary prompt 5.a,b

Throughout the lesson, I respond to the focus learner’s performance to promote application of learning. When the focus learner gets the correct answer, as seen in the video clip at 4:36, I make sure I praise him. The focus learner does very well with positive reinforcement. He raises his confidence, and it pulls him into the lesson more. This praise helps the focus learner want to figure out the answer more and more on his own.

I provide verbal feedback to the focus learner throughout the lesson to improve performance related to the learning goal. When discussing numerical coefficients in the beginning of the video I explain to the students that when a variable does not have a numerical coefficient in front of it, the numerical coefficient is understood to be 1. For example, x is the same thing as 1x. Because the focus learner does well with visual information, he asked if could write a 1 on his worksheets in front of variables without a numerical coefficient. In the video, this can be seen at 1:19. I provided feedback in the form of verbal confirmation. The focus learner and I both know that this small, simple strategy will help him succeed toward the learning goal.

Also, in the video at 12:52 after working on an expression together, we came to the answer of 20x + 9. The students were tempted to combine the 20 and the 9. I reassured them that they will not always get a clean, simple answer when combining like terms. The focus learner then responded, “So if they are alike we will have one simple answer. If they are not alike we are just going to leave it with two numbers.” I praise the focus learner for understanding that concept. I also let him know that we may have more than two terms. The focus learner can use this information to help him with combining like terms in the future.