Element A: Teachers demonstrate knowledge about the ways in which learning takes place, including the levels of intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development of their students.
In my high school placement, I always post an attendance question and the daily agenda. This acts as a warm up and a meet and greet. This has been so important for creating relationships with the students, which I know is essential for learning. This honored both the emotional and intellectual development of students as they took a minute to just be human and answer a random question about themselves.
Element B: Teachers use formal and informal methods to assess student learning, provide feedback, and use results to inform planning and instruction.
In this padlet, I monitor student progress on a specific project. I give feedback through comments and make sure that they are advancing their skills. Students are also assigned to comment on one another's posts to practice art language and possibly gain new ideas. This padlet informed my planning and assessment because I could better understand student engagement and process. If student didn't seem like they made a lot of progress one day, I could call them into the breakout room the next day and ask what is going on. The padlet posts were assessed as process grades each week, which is taken into consideration when grading the project as a whole, because it speaks to their effort.
Element C: Teachers integrate and utilize appropriate available technology to engage students in authentic learning experiences.
I created a YouTube channel to post instructional videos for my students. Due to COVID, many students were absent quite a bit so this helped them catch up. I created videos independently before I taught each lesson taught synchronously, and then if a student was absent I would ask them to go back and watch the video from last class to catch up. This way, I didn't have to stop instruction for everyone else.
Element D: Teachers establish and communicate high expectations and use processes to support the development of critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.
In this powerpoint slide, I demonstrate a particular drawing process to students. Their challenge is to demonstrate their own ability to follow these steps. This comes with practice and repetition, as shown here with pictures and words. Students were asked to draw using these steps for 5, 10, and then 20 min at a time. This challenged students to have patience with the process and think critically about how to execute it. It also taught them how to problem solve to improve each time, which was discussed as a class.
Element E: Teachers provide students with opportunities to work in teams and develop leadership.
Here, I had students create a collaborative presentation. In this way, they worked together to create something despite the challenges surrounding this due to the pandemic. Students at home (virtual students) and in the classroom could both complete this assignment, which then allowed them to view each other's work and gain inspiration before creating their own portraits.
Element F: Teachers model and promote efective communication.
I always put clear learning objectives at the beginning of every lesson. These "I can" statements demonstrate appropriate elementary school level language because students can easily finish the sentence with what they were able to do after completing the lesson. In my objectives, I never used words that students in elementary school would not understand.
Reflection: This quality standard was also heavily impacted by the pandemic, and this actually encouraged me to become accomplished in this area. I found some creative ways to get students to share their work, engage with myself and with other students, and check up on their emotional wellbeing. I implemented fun attendance questions, had students do “group shares”, used padlets, and worked in one on one break out rooms as much as possible. Instead of always trying to replicate what the classroom environment would be if we were in person, I embraced the fact that this year would look different. I think this set my students up for success in the reality we were in. Based on this reflection, my professional goal is to continue using technology in the ways that I discovered worked very well.