Focus:
Model Standards for Beginning Teacher Licensing, Assessment and Development (INTASC).
Principle #9: The teacher is a reflective practitioner who continually evaluates the effects of his/her choices on others (students, parents, and other professionals in the learning community) and who actively seeks out opportunities to grow professionally.

INTASC core P9.pdf

 

Reflection:
Engaging in self-reflection is essential to becoming an effective teacher. Reflection upon my own practice, and on how my teaching practices effect those around me, is what allows me to change and improve as an educator. Reflection may come in many forms and occur in many realms of teaching. Often my reflections are in the form of conversations with colleagues, mentors or master teachers, other times they are in the form of a class assignment or journal, and still other reflections may take the form of looking over past lessons and thinking of ways to improve or change them. Reflection, and my own personal growth as a teacher, has occurred in many realms of my practice. Some of these realms include assessing and supporting student learning, classroom management, interpersonal interactions, students' personal growth, parent communication, cooperation with colleagues, use of hands-on activities, scaffolding inquiry learning, scaffolding students to become independent learners, and many more. During the past three semesters in the MACSME program at UC Berkeley I student taught in three very different situations, and grown immensely in the process. I have also attended conferences and classes, and spent countless hours with other pre-service teachers talking about teaching. I feel that much of the growth and progress I have made has been a direct result of having the opportunity to step back from the classroom and think about how my decisions and actions shape the learning environment.

The following pieces of evidence show that I regularly engage in reflecting on my own practice and seek out opportunities to grow as an educator. Each piece is accompanied by an explanation of how it shows my engagement in reflection and desire to improve my own teaching.