Welcome, Readers.

In the past, I have gone through some personal struggles that made me a tough student to teach or engage. I seemed to want to participate in some activities, but not all of them, and I didn't always complete assignments, regardless of the importance to my degree. One of the best professors I ever had pushed me to be a better student and personally recovering from my own personal hardships by pointing out my strengths while also asking me the hard questions. They would ask me if teaching is what I REALLY wanted to do since my behavior reflected differently, and they told me if it is, they will help in any way they can to get me there. From that point my academic life has slowly but surely recovered, and I know now without a doubt that teaching is for me, and I need to prove that each and every day to the best of my ability.

I am placed in a school that has an excessive case of absenteeism. In the age of online learning, about half the students regularly attend and even less than that actually complete the given assignments. In the previous year, this school received numerous D's and F's on their building/academic report card. There are no senior teachers, so teacher turn-around is high. My students are most recently getting several-times-weekly, frustration-filled lectures about how they need to attend class. complete assignments and step up their academic games to actually succeed and complete the sixth grade. The cooperating teacher often gets visibly frustrated with students and their repeated questions, inabilities to help themselves, and apparent lack of interest. Now, where am I going with this? I feel that my cooperating teacher is handling things all wrong. While she does make efforts to get to know students, she appears to have zero warmth in her teaching strategies, and the high demand of her students is only now beginning to be discussed. In one frustration filled class, my cooperating teacher finally told everyone they must turn their cameras on, so she can take a real attendance. Several students weren't in school-appropriate attire. Some were still in bed. Others would turn their cameras on their school-provided Chromebooks (laptops with guaranteed working cameras) and would immediately turn them back off. I feel that if my cooperating teacher had set up specific rules had explicit demands of her students, all while being caring and warm with them, she would be in an entirely different place with them behaviorally.

Differentiation within the classroom is essentially a way to vary the educational experience so that students feel that they are getting the curriculum that best reflects who they are academically and personally. According to Tomlinson (What is differentiated instruction?), they say "Differentiation is responsive teaching rather than one size fits all teaching". It is the opposite of "one size fits all" teaching or teaching "in the middle" (Differentiation PowerPoint). It is responsive to learners' needs (Differentiation Model). As the Institutes on Academic Diversity says "Just as medical doctors don’t prescribe the same medications for every one of their patients, teachers who differentiate instruction are mindful of varied learning needs of their students and plan instruction accordingly". Differentiated instruction is a way of altering the content, process, and product based on a student's readiness, interests, and learning profile. The hope is to have just the right amount of demand of a student cognitively so that they feel they are challenged the appropriate amount without creating boredom or anxiety within the classroom (Mihaly Csikezentmihalyi).

In my field, students are generally in a whole-class setting. The CT that I am working with seems to struggle with how to divide students based on their abilities and interests in a socially distant learning setting. Most recently, the CT gives me an "at level" group of students to work with in one breakout room, and gives the "lower level" students another breakout room to work with her. I feel that the two groups of students are getting drastically different learning experiences between myself and my CT based on my integration of technology and applications, whereas she follows the textbook and does not have as many online resources saved.

When I was in the third and fourth grades, I was put in "enrichment". Once a week every week, myself and approximately 5 other students went to another building to work with approximately 5 other students ahead on topics and other demanding tasks. We read different books, worked on typing skills, equations, and how to function Microsoft programs, etc. The whole point of this course was to challenge us so that we were not bored in our classes. I feel that this program really shaped who I am today. Even though I feel that the way students were assessed to get into the program was not well thought out (students could only test into it in the second grade and either you were in it for 2 years or you weren't), I feel that the intent of the program was benefical. On Thursdays while I was being challenged, the other students in the class got work/review days to catch up on assignments and content. I feel that this sort of idea should be implemented in the classroom. In the seventh grade, while students worked on another task in pre-algebra, myself and four other students were given an extensive problem to try to figure out as a group using the same mathematical skills. These breakout groups that I did in my academic career are what pushed me to be where I am, as well as encouraged me to enjoy school.

In the text

Assessment within the classroom comes in several varieties, tests for several skills/dispositions, and has numerous targets. The purpose of an assessment is to see how closely students are understanding a learning target or goal. A learning target or goal is established based on what the intention of a unit is, then the goal of an assessment is to see the progress of students along the way. According to William and Leahy (2007): “An assessment is formative and to the extent that the information from the assessment is fed back within the system and actually used to improve the performance of the system in some way.” Assessments begin with the goals, of which there are four types. The four types are skills, reasoning, knowledge, and product (Importance of Clear Learning Targets). Then through a variety of processes, the learning is observed so that students’ gaps in knowledge can be filled. There are two types of assessment: formative and summative (Formative Instructional Practice Module), then there are four types of delivering the assessment: selected response, written response, performance assessment, and personal communication (Collecting Accurate Formative Evidence Module). From that point, feedback must be given that is either effective (moves learning forward), success centered (focus on what was done well), or interventional (helps student focus on what still needs work and provides guidance on how to move forward). 

In my personal experience, the use of assessment follows nearly every narrative that students experience in the classroom. Learning targets were not posted or discussed. Assessments were used summatively, and were often graded. And when learning was not showing that students were moved in the correct direction, there was no alter to the lesson plan to reflect the knowledge of students. 

Unfortunately, this is also reflected in the classroom I am working with pretty heavily. Students are rarely provided with goals or learning targets. Without the goals or learning targets being established, there is little direction as to where the students’ learning needs to go. If students have their learning goals pronounced, they are able to direct their own learning. They are able to answer: Where are you trying to go? Where are you now? How can you get there? (Sadler and Atkin, Black and Coffey). They are able to self direct their understanding and communicate where they are, where they need to be, and how to get there. In this circumstance, students are not being given goals, so they are not able to direct their learning. From this point, students are usually formally assessed (since it is easiest to do in a virtual learning setting). From that point, students are usually responsible for their own learning, then they are formally and summatively assessed at the end of a unit or topic. 

I remember the day that I learned the purpose of schooling is. I was a sophomore in high school, I was in all accelerated classes and I was doing poorly in most of them. I had a meeting with my A.P. US History teacher over the fact that I couldn’t seem to score higher than a “D” on his weekly quizzes, no matter what I did. We discussed the things I could potentially do, study harder, read the chapters in the textbook, get a tutor, etc. It was at that moment that I remember telling myself “The whole purpose here is to get good at school- that’s what I need to do.” From that point until graduation, I didn’t take school as useful information that I would need someday, or concepts that will help me navigate life later on, I simply took it as subjects that I need to learn to “get good at” so that I can be successful in school. What I’m saying is, I never felt that the majority of my teachers designed their curriculum in a way that had learning transfer as a long-term goal. Many of my teachers growing up simply thought that their jobs were to teach me their subjects and hope that I retained the information, none of them ever thought or considered that there was something more to learning their subjects that would be more useful to us as students.

Every day to begin class, my cooperating teacher does two things before she mentions anything academic related: she gives a morning shoutout to a student who exemplifies model behavior, and she asks students a question about their life/interests/opinions that gets them engaged and builds relationships between herself and the classroom. Since learning is online, students often do not speak unless spoken to, so half the reason of asking student individually how their weekend was, or what their favorite class in school is, is to take attendance and make sure students are there, but also to get students to build relationships, relate to one another, learn more and about the teacher. Prior to diving into the importance of social emotional learning, I knew the importance of learning about the whole student, but as I get deeper into the benefits of social emotional learning, the more I realize the importance of these daily behaviors in the classroom.

In this new age of virtual learning, I personally see my professors struggle most with transitioning from in-person management practices to online practices. I see the the classes that were always intended to be virtual succeeding and carrying on despite the hardships of a pandemic, and those that were changed to a virtual delivery to struggle (especially the classes that went from in-person to virtual in the spring). Why is this? I believe that many of my professors are not used to changing the mechanics of their classroom, and are used to the same delivery, methods, tools, etc. to provide a successful learning experience. I feel that potentially a lot of my professors got used to delivering the same course with little to no changes from semester to semester. The classes I see succeeding the most in the change from in-person to virtual are my education courses, where the professors are much more accustomed to changing their curricula to reflect students’ needs than my other professors. I relate this change in class delivery to that of a first year teacher building their curriculum and figuring out what tools work, what lessons are worth keeping, etc. I recognize that it takes some time to transition, but I feel that especially for some courses, professors are not putting in the effort to modify their content to fit an online format while also providing a successful education to their students. I feel that all aspects of a course, even at a college level, need to be reevaluated and altered to help students succeed, and many professors could learn from what is happening in K-12 schools.

For example, I am not personally in the field yet due to a family emergency had by my cooperating teacher, but I am seeing the effects of virtual learning on my two younger sisters (age 10 and 16), one attending a private Christian school in-person and one attending a public high school in a blended format. While the format for one of my sister’s schools has not changed, many aspects has changed amidst the pandemic. She is required to wear a mask to school, maintain social distancing, keep contact to a minimum, and frequently wash and sanitize herself and her work area. Even with all those new change, from a curriculum standpoint, material that should’ve been covered and mastered Spring of 2020 is being re-covered in Fall of 2020 so that students are not missing key concepts and material that ensures that they are capable of moving forward in their education. My other sister is seeing both delivery methods of education amidst a pandemic since she is blended. She is in the school once a week as well as online both synchronously and asynchronously the remaining four days of the week. I feel that out of the two, my youngest sister (who is in-person) is handling the pandemic better than my other sister who is blended. Why is that? I feel that is can be accredited to the fact that she is learning new classroom rules and regulations for both virtual and in person learning. Classroom management is being altered to reflect the mode of teaching, but she is being introduced to two new sets of standards depending on the method of delivery. 

According to Sarah Schwartz from Education Week, maintaining the normal  is a key element to classroom routine. I feel that this is successful for both in-person and online formats. Making it obvious to students to where homework goes/when, how to ask to use the restroom, how to contact you with questions/concerns, etc. is something that all students need to know all the time. I feel that whether the format is online, in-person, or blended, trying to maintain a semblance of routine (example: assignment turn-in is always online) is one way to maintain normalcy. Schwartz goes on to state that the pillars of successful virtual education are really not all that different from a “normal” classroom setting: meaningful engagement, cognitively demanding work, and responding to formative assessment. The real differences lie in how the delivery methods, assessments, and engagement are created in the classroom. Engagement may no longer be able to be done in a whole-class setting, utilizing chat features, emails, class newsletters, etc. is the new norm for students, teachers, and guardians who do not have access to in-class engagement. Formative assessment and student thinking are no longer easily viewed with in-person conferencing or utilizing whiteboards. As CBS’s reporter Holly Williams states, “The new normal comes with lots of new rules.” We are moving towards an education that is occurring in a format that has potentially never been seen by students (or even teachers). As seen in videos such as “Virtual Learning Video Etiquette” and “5 Do’s and Don’ts of Webcam Etiquette”, there are new standards to how to behave in virtual classroom settings. This can be quite difficult for students to grasp (even potentially some guardians as well). Just like how at some point in time students should be taught how to write professional emails to succeed in the “real world”, students should be taught how to function in virtual situations as well. Williams states “School may never be exactly the same way as it was.”, and it is our duty as educators to prepare students for a new virtual age of education through management and practices. Jennifer Pieratt mentions “skills such as collaboration and creativity are no longer simply ‘soft skills’. They’re now a necessity for our society to adapt to new challenges.”. Just as students must adapt to a new classroom setting, teachers must adapt to a new classroom delivery. In some instances, the change in delivery method can be positive! We can now record our lessons so students have future access to them. Internet chats and forums are possible so says students have the ability to contribute without stepping out of their comfort zone. 

Throughout my field experiences in college, I have seen a large divide in new and old teaching strategies that are perpetuated within the classroom. This divide in thinking and learning new strategies moves the classroom away from being safe and healthy, in numerous ways. For example, I was in a first grade placement with a teacher that handled students with IEP’s and 504′s very well. I  was given an hour to observe her and her teaching techniques, and she had great methods of classroom management that catered to all the students within her classroom. One particular day, this teacher had a substitute teacher. She was an older lady, retired from teaching and is now substituting. I remember taking the group of students (along with the substitute) to the bathroom down the hall. There was one particular student, a young black girl, who had a generally hard time conforming to school, she was disruptive, and was on a modified learning plan, ran up to the substitute and grabbed the substitute’s pan-front to get her attention- she was excited. The teacher immediately started yelling about personal space and how she could’ve been hurt. I felt pained for the student as the substitute made a comment about how student “nowadays” seem not to know how to act. In that instance, I informed her that that student struggles every day with curriculum and classroom standards. I feel that that teacher was not familiar with getting to know the students, and with a quick question could’ve easily found out that the classroom was filled with students who struggled with curriculum and management. I think it is important that as new studies are done to better reflect our students’ needs, we need to abandon old methods and ideologies (no matter the comfort level or familiarity) and do what is right by our students. 

As a student, the intricacies of classroom management and organization were never something that I thought much about. Many rules and procedures were created to establish order and regulation within the classroom, and I never really questioned the authority or the baacking to why my education was framed the way it was. I think a lot of this is because I am a white, middle-class woman who was raised in a predominantly white suburb, and taught in a predominantly white school by predominantly white teachers. I am now a senior in college, and I have my first black teacher ever. I never questioned the authority or the rules because they reflected my culture and upbringing, they were centralized to my culture, something that is not condusive to a successful learning environment. I remember hearing my black counterparts in public school say things such as, "This is so stupid." when reprimanded and I never knew why, I thought, "Well if they just followed the rules, they wouldn't be in trouble." It took me 21 years of life to fully understand that perhaps my BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) counterparts are "misbehaving" because the rules were never created with them in mind. To begin to even have a safe, healthy, SUCCESSFUL learning environment, culturally responsive pedagogy and positive behavioral support need to be centered within the school.

From what I can tell, geographical context (as well as social context) heavily impact teaching and learning within the classroom. I am looking to begin a placement in an urban school, and as preparation, I looked into the demographic of the school and surrounding area. According to reports, the school is a majority miniority school (mostly black), and is populated by 400 students. Proficiency scores are far below state average, the achievement score is listed as an "F" ad the school overview report score is a "D". 100% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The surrounding area is considered urban.

I think there is a heavy importance in becoming familiar with a school far before submerging myself in the classroom. Without some investigation at first, I never would've known that the principal is a black woman. I think it is important that students see themselves reflected in positions of power. Gorski says "We cannot confront inequity and injustice by ignoring classism." By having a principal that does not align with the school demographic, a great injustice would occur for the school and surrounding communities. These students have very little at home, and lean on school for a safe, enriching space. During the age of COVID, students may not have access to WIFI, computers, transportation to the school to pick up assigments, consistent food, etc. If students are not able to meet their basic needs, they would be unable to focus on higher order thinking.

From my personal experience, I have never been submereged in a situation that I have been the minority. I have gone to mostly white schools, lived and worked in mostly white areas, and traveled to locations where I am still the majority. That has heavily impacted personal experiences and education in regard to other cultures. This has not changed my tolerance for other cultures, but to some of my classmates and hometown neighbors, the inexperience with other cultures has lead to intolerance.

According to Grant Wiggins, UbD is not a philosophy of teaching, it is a planning framework. This is interesting because it shows that it is more than just a lifestyle (something I believe it should be), it is a way to set up lessons and units to best fit students’ needs. It gives teacher a framework to work with that can help their lessons be more successful and impactful. Essential questions (within the classroom) are defined as questions you want your students to consider again and again over a long period of time. They are thought provoking, open ended, and are often the ideas surrounding a particular unit or course of study (Wiggins). These questions are the beginning of UbD, and are means of integrating several subjects in the classroom. This framework is applicable to all subjects and content areas and can heavily affect the concept of lesson planning. 

In my field placement, UbD was not something that was utilized. It seemed very much like the teachers were planning based on tests and not based on the big questions that their units should’ve been surrounding (essential questions). Classrooms now, versus the ones I went through, are more prone to following essential questions and creating enduring understandings, but there is still room for growth. Their greatest strength was using integrative curriculum. The teachers made it their goal to bring up and use topics and language that students were learning in other classes. 

In my classrooms growing up, I felt like there wasn’t many times that essential questions propelled my learning. I feel that science was the only subject that used an ending question to encourage my curiosity. UbD was rarely, if ever, reflected in the classrooms growing up, something that I think could have been incredibly beneficial to myself and my classmates. 

UbD, accord to Wiggins, is teaching for understanding and transfer, students in the end should understand a bigger picture. In this way, teachers should identify the desired results, THEN determine means of assessment, AND THEN plan the instruction. An example that is highlighted in the article Integrating Curriculum for Meaningful Learning is the concept of teaming and integrating subjects. By giving students a better understanding of how their education applies to the world around them, the curriculum is altered to fit the integration of other subjects. This, in a way, facilitates UbD since the end goal is pre-established by a group of teachers before they create the integrative lessons. 

One project that was occurring in the field that was a perfect example of integration and how philosophy affects curriculum was a business project that three of the fifth grade classrooms were all actively working on. The students were working as teams (or individuals as an option) to create a good or service. They worked hard across several subjects to create a well rounded business. Students worked in English to create a Shark Tank presentation that involved a hook/introduction, a proposal, and included statistics. The statistics were created in math, where students also found out the cost of the goods that they would need to establish their goods/services. Students would have presented their Shark Tank presentations in front of their peers, and would have been given a score that determined what plot of land they get during the day they trade goods and services (better plots of land=more income). Students began to understand how business works and the importance of subjects in the real world through this project.

When I was a fourth grader, I did a very similar project but it did not involve any type of integration, nor was at is extensive. The whole fourth grade participated in creating something in groups out of materials you could “buy” with your allotted group money. This was something all students completed in social studies as a part of a finance and business unit. What I remember most about the unit is how well my group did selling paper balloons, not how I calculated the cost of goods, or any type of business proposal. This shows the difference that integration can make on both the curriculum and the long term impact of a unit.

Middle level philosophy plays a heavy part in curriculum due to to the impact that the structure and administration of said curriculum have in the classroom. Everything involving, surrounding, and including the classroom impacts how the classroom is set up and influence, something that is seen through AMLE’s 16 characteristics. The culture and community, the curriculum, instruction, and assessment, and the leadership administration all alter and play roles in the middle level philosophy, of which can heavily effect the curriculum. An example that is brought up in Mark Springer’s webinar is the need for students to achieve autonomy, mastery, and purpose in the classroom. This is important to point out because autonomy is not always something that is highlighted or attempted at in younger grades. 

I am lucky enough to get an observation experience as unique as being in a fifth grade classroom located in an elementary school. In many ways, the teacher succeeded in giving the kids autonomy, she let them work on certain projects at their own pace and create their own goals. But in many ways she was still an elementary school teacher with a 4-5 endorsement: students were talked to and from lunch times and specials periods, students had a homeroom they they did nearly everything with throughout the day, worksheets were given and all worked on together, books were read together aloud on a carpet, the teacher chose picture books over chapter books (or differentiated books). Since this was an elementary school, not much differentiation happened between students and their capabilities, the only differentiation that happened was that students could chose their own groups on most occasions and oftentimes the higher achieving students chose to work with other higher achieving students. The middle level philosophy was not reflected by my cooperating teacher in her curriculum and classroom habits, and it led to a lot of dependence between teacher and students, and a lack of preparedness for middle school. 

I can remember, as a student, not feeling independence academically until late middle school. I felt that everything I did was done in assigned groups or altogether as a class, even in the advanced classes. I felt little to no independence, which led to little to no care in what was happening in class, and no mastery in the end. By not incorporating autonomy into curriculum, something I needed as a middle schooler, I was not able to master many things as a young middle schooler, and it led to a negative early experience. 

As Sherrel Bergmann reiterates, the young adolescent age group is a new observation to science, but there is existing research on children in general. She states that “by identifying this age group as different, then what we’ve done is be able to start new research projects that have to do with these kids.” Being a professional middle level educator means you are wholly invested in the methods and positions of young adolescent research, as well as being committed to the AMLE standards surrounding classrooms, setup, school mechanics, community, parents, and students. 

I believe that my cooperating teacher is a professional educator (she is not licensed as a middle level educator). She is a preK-3rd licensed with a generalist endorsement, which allows her to teach her 5th grade classroom. I think she does a really good job of catering to the specific needs of her students as growing adolescents, but I think that she could be better prepared to push her students to learn and grow as young adults if she was licensed in middle childhood education. I feel that to some degree, her teaching the 5th grade in an elementary school leads to her treating them more as elementary school students rather than budding middle school students. I think she does the absolute best the ways she was taught/knows how, but I think that having more experience/knowledge in the middle levels could push her to be an even better educator professionally.

In my personal experience, I went to 5th grade in a specific building dedicated to 5th and 6th grades. This pushed me to evolve closer to that of a young, independent adult than that of an elementary schooler. I think that this layout for a school setting is very well thought out and is beneficial for the students, which in the end leads to students growing and learning in an environment that was specifically catered to them. This shows a good reflection of middle level professionalism.