Evaluation of Ability

One of the most important things that every good teacher does it reflect and revise their teaching. As an artist, self reflecting and giving constructive criticism is something that I have been doing for years and practice daily. It isn't always easy to do but with practice and patience it becomes easier.

For me, I use self reflection as well as reflection from others to adjust my teaching and lesson plans. In an article written by David Cutler, "Reflecting on the Year's Accomplishments", Cutler talks about end of the year one page reflection. He suggests that it is written in third person and is objective as you can be. I do a similar technique but I prefer to journal. I like to do my reflecting in small chunks and usually after every lesson I do. I write brief notes while the lesson is taking place as well as write out improvements that can be done and positives moments. I prefer to do this because if I did it at the end of the year, I would forget most everything that I did.

Getting feedback comes in many forms and one of the other ways I like to receive feedback is from my students. They are the ones that are effected the most by what I do and kids are always open to sharing things that they did or did not like. In Richard Curwin's article, "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How can I be a better teacher next fall?" has many different ways you can ask students for feedback. My favorite technique was the Five Item List. Students write on one side of the notecard things that helped their learning. One the back, they write five things that made it hard for them to learn. No names are needed. While they write their answers you predict on your own notecard the answers that students might give on each side. After, you compare your answers to theirs. This would allow me to reflect on myself while also receiving feedback from a different point of view. During my teacher assisting semester, I actually made a self reflection for the students to complete after they finished their project. There were a few questions that also pertained to the project and a space for them to give suggestions. It was really helpful to see as well as discuss what students enjoyed and what they thought would make the lesson better. I would give this to the higher level students after every big project or activity.

As important as personal and student feedback are, there is also another group that is equally as important to receive feedback from. That group is the administration or principle. The feedback that this population can provide gives you another different perspective into your teaching. They are usually more critical and are looking to see if you are hitting the key learning targets and covering all of the required content. Getting this helps to keep you on track or lets you know what you might be missing and can do better adding it to future lessons. Whether the feedback is formal or informal it is valuable either way. I plan of having my principle come in at least a few times a year and would also hope to have a meeting with them once or twice a school year to go over everything. Being in Art, I feel that this will also advocate for the program and show how dedicated and needed the art program truly is.

The two forms below are two ways that I am planning on organizing my thoughts as well as my students thoughts. The first one are questions from a teacher pedagogy, teachthought.com, that I like using when I plan my lessons as well as after I teach them. I attach these questions to each lesson plan I make so I can keep track of my responses.

The second one is an exit slip from another teacher blog site, bookwidget, that I plan on using with students after the completion of every project. Student reflection can be more difficult at the elementary level but I feel that I could still use this exit slip at every level.

Resource Forms:

Teacher Reflection Form

Student Reflection Form

My Personal Student Evaluation Form

Bibliography:

TeachThoughtStaff. (2019, October 20). 9 Questions to Reflect Critically on Your Own Teaching. In teachthought.com. Retrieved from https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/teacher-selfie-seen-teach-lately/

Renard, L. (2019, February 21). How to become a reflective teacher- The complete guide for reflection in teaching. In bookwidgets.com. Retrieved from https://www.bookwidgets.com/blog/2019/02/how-to-become-a-reflective-teacher-the-complete-guide-for-reflection-in-teaching

Cutler, D. (2016, June 2). Reflecting on the Years Accomplishments. In Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/reflecting-on-the-years-accomplishments-david-cutler

Curwin, R. (2013, May 9). Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How Can I Be a Better Teacher Next Fall. In Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/a-better-teacher-next-fall-richard-curwin