Reflection and Self-Evaluation In every lesson included in my teacher work sample I used culturally responsive curricula to address the

diversity of my classroom. Not only did I include mini lessons for my English Language Learners (ELL), I included modifications for my low level students, also. An example of this is during my lesson on the location of Utah and the United States I included various maps for students to practice locating Utah and the United States. This benefited my ELL students, as well as, my low level students. The results of the post-assessment tell me this was an effective way to meet the diversity of my classroom. In many of my lessons I included a video to increase background knowledge and introduce difficult topics. All of the lessons included either some sort of interactive technology activity, included in those were smart board activities, a power point, and videos. I can tell these activities supported student learning because during lesson 5, I showed a video about the continents and oceans, when the students were completing the assignment, they were able to recall information from the video. This knowledge can also be seen in the results of the postassessment by the students being able to locate the continents and oceans on the world map. I feel that I showed confidence while teaching my lessons. The students were engaged and excited to learn the topic. They asked me questions and I was able to answer them with my content knowledge. I feel I showed my knowledge of the topic in each lesson, and the feedback I received from my supervisor and mentor teacher was positive. I showed confidence and subject matter knowledge in each lesson. Creating a physically and emotionally safe classroom was my goal from the first day I one of them. I used the same discipline procedures as my mentor teacher, to help the student feel comfortable while I was teaching. Using the same classroom management techniques as my

mentor teacher was effective to point, but I toward the end of my unit lessons, I had to implement a few new policies to keep the students engaged. I found that giving the students a time limit for transitions and a point system helped them follow directions and stay focused during my lessons. Many of the techniques I used for classroom management were effective, for example the point system was effective. One technique that was ineffective was giving the students tickets to put in the basket. My mentor teacher gave them out, but had no payment system for bad behavior. So the tickets were just enforcing positive behavior but were not lost when students were not following directions. I ended up creating a system where they got 3 tickets at the beginning of the day and were required to pay them for misbehavior, if they ran out of tickets the student would pay recess time. Overall, I found a system that worked for classroom management. The data from this Teacher Work Sample has shown me how much students are able to learn from well planned and organized lessons. The pre-test showed that many students didnt understand the topic, but the post-test results showed that all students gained significant knowledge. I have been able to evaluate the outcomes of my teaching, because I can see how well the students learned the topic from my lessons. I have been able to evaluate the outcome of student learning with valid test questions on the formative assessments and post-assessment. For example, the student with and IEP went from a score of a 0% on the pre-test to a score of 75% on the post-test. I can tell from this that he learned the topic of the unit and my teaching was effective. During this teaching experience I learned how to better my teaching through conversations with my mentor teacher and self-evaluations of my teaching. I feel I have gained more confidence since the beginning of this teaching experience. I know what works in the

classroom and I am able to get the students attention if they become unfocused. I feel that I have grown as a professional because I have increased my knowledge of how to handle situations with students, teachers and parents. Through this experience I have made great relationships with students, parents and colleagues. There was a student that was very anxious at school, and having a hard time focusing, he would cry and not do his work. I was able to talk to him and find out he was embarrassed about crying at school and then could not stop crying because he was worried that the other students would make fun of him. I told him that there was no need to be embarrassed, and it helped him because we have another student that cries every morning. He has since become very attentive and doesnt cry anymore. I feel I showed him I care and that has impacted the students learning. I have built great relationships with the members of the first grade team, during out PLC meetings I ask them for their opinions on how to handle a situation if I cannot figure one out. They share their ideas with me and their life experiences, I find these to benefit student learning because I am able to get ideas to better my teaching and better the progress of my students. I find that any relationship I have with my students, their parents and my colleagues will benefit student learning, because it creates an emotionally safe environment.