Assessments are used to collect data on knowledge, skill, attitudes, and beliefs to refine programs and improve student learning. As a student I use to think about assessment in a negative way, now that I am on the other side as a teacher I realize there is much more to assessment that what meets the eye. An assessment can tell you so much about a student if analyze and measured correctly. When I say measured correctly I am saying I feel that it is impossible to measure students accurately when they are all receiving the same exam. Yes we know that some students have test accommodation where they receive extended time, question read to them, etc. But what is lacking is having the assessment tailored to the student’s needs. I am not saying making the exam easier for them because then that would not be an accurate measure also. Each student learns differently so, therefore, I think it’s only fair that they get assess differently also. I was reading an article about questions to tackle when designing assessments. designing student assessment.  There were several things that stood out to me. One did your assessment provide student choice, and I thought to myself student choice from since when students get to have a choice in selected the type of assessment they take. When I read more into it I realize what it was saying and it made perfect sense. Having students involved in the designing of their assessment I believe is a great idea it allows students to more connected to their learning process. It helps students to build certain skills like self-assessment and effective decision-making. Involving students in the process of designing assessment and rubric helps empowering students learning it also will help the student to know exactly what to do and how their assessment is being graded. In the beginning teacher will have to guide students on how to create strong assessments and once students are comfortable and capable of creating assessment. Currently, at my school, we are preparing for our first Socratic seminar in math. During the Socratic seminar students will be analyzing each other work and grading them according to the rubric. Then, they are going to discuss the students’ work and the score that they receive and why they gave them that score they did. At first, we was questioning how can we do a Socratic seminar in math but, we later found out it is possible and now we are using it as a form of summative assessment. This helps target those students who struggle to write down their answers but can verbally express and walk you through solving a problem.   Another thing that stood out to me was do your assessments adapt to individual students in your classroom as needs arise? This goes back to what I mentioned above about having a tailored assessment for students. It should be a goal for us as teachers to want to do individualize assessments. I know you’re probably saying this woman is crazy this will be more work on us teachers. But, I do not look at it as more work I look at it as this benefiting my students and helping them be successful. The goal of individualizing assessments is to score the student against proficiency levels for any given learning objective or score them for growth versus their prior assessment data. To be successful at designing individualize assessment we as teachers must study and pinpoint what the student is struggling with, and then know what types of accommodations to implement. We as educators need to start looking at assessment as data that we can analyze and find ways to help better our students’ learning. 

Having been a paraprofessional for 5years I have seen the good and the bad when it comes to co-teaching. Co-teaching is like forming a relationship, it is up to the two people involved to make it a healthy or unhealthy one. When I first decided to become a special educator I knew that most likely I would be co-teaching and I told myself that I will not be one of the special educators that will know pull her own weight. I have seen two things when it comes to co-teaching. One where both teachers work collaboratively where the workload is shared equally and the other where one teacher the General education teacher most of the time is doing most of the work anywhere from sharing the planning, organization, delivery, and assessment of instruction.

My experience so far with co-teaching hasn’t been a terrible one but still, have room for improvement. I currently co-teach with three different teachers. Three different personalities to deal with, three different relationships to build. Three months in and I am still trying to find my place. Although, they have been supportive I still feel I need to find my way. Sometimes I feel lost even though we collaborate every week about what we are going to teach. Most of the time I feel like a silent partner and my input doesn’t really matter that is my biggest struggle to this day. Sometimes we disagreed about how to best help a particular student. In the end, we all are trying to do what is best for our students. We haven’t really come up with a co-teaching structure. weather we will do one teach, one observe, one teach, one assist, parallel teaching, station teaching, alternative teaching, and team teaching. I feel we just go with the motion. For the most part, we use the team teaching structure. I personally prefer the team teaching structure. It is like a tag-team method. Where both teachers teach the content at the same time.

The question that I keep asking myself is “how to make it work?” I know for this to work there several things that need to be done. First, we have to establish respect for each other. Even though we might disagree at times there are ways to do it respectfully. Secondly, we have to clearly define our roles and responsibilities so that one person will not feel the burden of the work. Thirdly, we need to flexible try different strategies to best serve our students. We have to keep the line of communication open for any fine-tuning. Lastly, we need to seek help if we are struggling. Sometimes an outside help like administrative can come in our room and observe and help find areas for improvement. Moving forward I just keep reminding myself not to let students play us against each other, they cannot see the ineffectiveness.

When I first got into this profession I kept hearing the word differentiate, I ask myself what does it mean to differentiate? I kept doing my research and realize that the word differentiate means having different strategies for a diverse classroom of learners to understand new content that is being taught in the classroom. How can I make the lessons accessible for all is the questions that keep coming to mind? I teach math and I am always thinking of ways I can scaffold my lessons to benefit my diverse classroom of learners.

It is still a learning process for me, but I gave it a try. I decided to differentiate my lessons because I realize that there were certain students in my class that needed extra support in order to understand the lesson so I know I needed to try a different way. I started providing a multi-text with definitions of the vocabulary that would be covered in the lesson. Also, I would look for an example outlining the steps they had to take to reach the answer. On the worksheet, I provided a checklist of the steps that they needed to follow as a guide for them.

What I realize is that even though I am providing the multi-text students are not utilizing it correctly. I have to constantly remind students it is there as an additional resource to help them through the lesson. I also realize that even though the checklist is provided some students are not using it. At this point, I am not thinking that these differentiation strategies are successful and I need to go back to the drawing board to figure out a better a plan.

What I started doing was when I am modeling the problem I use a think-aloud strategy so that student will see how it looks like when someone is solving a problem. I also model how to use the checklist and explain to the student why the checklist is there and how useful it is if used correctly.

What I have learned from this process so far is that it is a trial and error process. I have to try different strategies until I find one that is successful for most students. I am not sure if there are workshops out there that help you to differentiate lessons for diverse learners. I would love to receive training on how to differentiate a lesson where it is effective and implement right away.

So, at this point anxiety has reached an all-time high for me that I have never experience. When I found out that my caseload had changed and my first IEP was due in less than two weeks from the time I receive that case. Nevertheless, I started working on the IEP with the little information as to where I should start. Imagine the thoughts and feelings that I was experiencing at this time. SCARY TO SAY THE LEAST. I knew had to get this done because I did not want us to be out of compliance because the special education teacher did not know what she was doing. I reached out for support and let me tell you the support I received gave me the motivation and confidence that I can do this. I am a person that always doubt myself. So to hear from the experts and yes I say experts because they have been writing IEP’s for years, that I was doing a great job with what I had written so far gave me a sigh of relief. In the end, I finish the IEP on time and now because I was the first one out of the new teacher to complete a full IEP I am now able to assist my other colleagues that are going through the anxiety I was facing a week ago.

At this point I have now written three IEP’s, I feel that the more I write them the more comfortable I am becoming. Whenever I have down time I take it upon myself to research topics around writing IEP which has been really helpful to me, because just being told that I need to keep the school in compliance is not enough. This is a legal document that decide what services our students need that is going to help them be successful in school and in life. So I have taking the initiative to do the research for myself so that I can develop a well written IEP that is really going to benefit the student.

The frustration that I am still having is communication within my team. I cannot finalize an IEP until my IEP coordinator takes a look at it. The communication between us needs to be better. I will email him that when I am done with the IEP and my mentor has reviewed it with so that I can get the approval to go ahead and finalize it. It will take days or another email before I can get an answer. But I am remaining hopeful and staying positive of the possibilities thats yet to come.

The joy I get from writing these IEP’s is when I have to interview the students one on one. Getting to know the means the world to me. I have find out so much about them during the interview process that have help me to better service them in class and also help my co-teacher better understand their situation. Thats what I look forward to when I have to write an IEP and thats what keeps me going.

First Observation

Posted byjulietaj87October 19, 2019Posted inUncategorized

I completed my first official observation. I was so nervous, to say the least. The anxiety went to an all-time high soon as I heard the door open and saw their faces. But I just had to tell myself “juju you didn’t reach this far for no reason.” and I continue my lesson as if it was just my co-teacher, my students and I. Everyone keep telling me you are doing great. But I am just a harsh critique of myself that I feel like I don’t know what I am doing. Failure is an unusual thing for me. But I just have to remember that we all fail but is what we do after we fail matters the most. I am not accustomed to not knowing what to do. In this profession, I am realizing that it is ok not to know everything, seek to advise.