TEACHER WORK SAMPLE – (PORTFOLIO SAMPLE STANDARD 8) Mia Angelis

Evaluation & Reflection of Lesson Plans Taught

As I reflect back on my ten-week student teaching placement at Emerson Elementary, I

can’t help but to feel content with my experience. There was a good part of me that feared how

I would teach the core to two different grade levels, while also juggling two to three small

groups within those grade levels. However, with plenty of reflection, adjustment, collaboration,

and growth I made it through my placement and felt confident while doing so.

I taught more lessons than I can count and often those lessons appeared on sticky notes in the

curriculum book with notes on how to differentiate a section, or an activity replacement. My

days moved quickly and there was hardly any time to write lesson plans out formally. Although I

taught both grades daily, I primarily focused on kindergarten and kindergarten/first grade

lessons when I was observed. This helped me to collect consistent data and see both academic

and behavioral growth in my students.

While reflecting on my lesson planning and teaching, the first lesson planning

characteristic that jumps out at me was my shift in academic and conversational language.

When I first began teaching in my placement, there was a significant learning curve for me

regarding academic language and what that looks like in a K-1st classroom. I quickly learned

that regardless of how explicit my language was, the wording was too complicated and lengthy.

The way I worded directions and expectations quickly changed after my first few weeks

teaching at Emerson. After changing my academic and conversational language to meet the

needs of my learners, I began to see more responsiveness during lessons and a greater

understanding for the content I was teaching.

TEACHER WORK SAMPLE – (PORTFOLIO SAMPLE STANDARD 8) Mia Angelis

When I first began teaching language arts to my kindergarteners, they were tracing

letters and working on their letter recognition. After multiple letter sound and recognition

interims, my students were able to begin working on CVC words by the end of the ten weeks.

Both of my kindergarteners had very similar IEP goals for language arts, their goals consisted of

being able to identify and distinguish upper and lower-case letters with 80% accuracy over 3-5

consecutive trails. Each lesson plan I created derived from my students’ academic and

behavioral IEP goals. At times I found myself racking my brain to create new lessons that kept

my students’ attention, while also helping them to work toward their IEP goals. I made my fair

share of mistakes during lesson planning and teaching and I often found myself making

adjustments to my lessons as I was teaching based informal data stop and checks. The informal

and formative data that I would collect while I was teaching helped me to adjust my instruction

and scaffolding. At the end of each day, I would spend ten minutes debriefing with my mentor,

reflecting, and adapting my instructional planning to meet the needs of my learners.

Evaluating and reflecting on the kindergarten language arts baseline data (Kallen’s),

there is growth from the beginning of the ten weeks to the end of the ten weeks. Although, this

growth is not as extensive as I had hoped for, Kallen [in particular], did come quite a way in his

letter recognition and CVC word formation. When I first began working with him, he struggled

to write letters without being able to trace them. After acknowledging that Kallen needed

additional academic support, my aides and I began to work with him extensively on his IEP goals

during morning work. The additional support he received in the mornings – even if it was only

five minutes – helped him progress towards his IEP goals immensely. By the end of the ten

weeks, Kallen and Aana had progressed from writing single letters (both lowercase and capitals)
TEACHER WORK SAMPLE – (PORTFOLIO SAMPLE STANDARD 8) Mia Angelis

to beginning to write CVC words and sight words. When I first began working with my students,

CVC words seemed out of reach and not always achievable based on the data I was collecting,

but with the additional differentiation and progress monitoring, my students began to make

advancements towards their IEP goals and beyond.

During my student teaching, I grew such a deep appreciation for teaching math and

watching my students explore various mathematical strategies. When reflecting on the data

that I have collected, I have found that my students made the most notable academic advances

in math. Aana was my only kindergarten student with a math IEP goal. Her goal stated, “Aana

will count objects (1-10) when given the cue “how many?” and will state the number with 80%

accuracy over 3 consecutive data collections.” When I first began working with Aana, I quickly

noticed her lack of mathematic confidence and that she would resort to guessing as opposed to

trying to solve the problem. In order for mathematic instruction to be successful, I knew I had

to work on immediate number recognition, one to one correspondence, and how to utilize

resources (like number lines) to assist my students, especially Aana, in problem solving. Once

my students had a good foundation of “how many objects?” or “how many objects do we need

to show the number five?” we began moving into more advanced lessons such as, showing one

more, showing one less, addition, and subtraction. I found myself surprised with how quickly

my students exceled in their mathematic instruction. Once their foundational skills were strong,

the students really took off and began guiding our math group from their zones of actual

development, to their zones of proximal development.

At the end of the ten weeks Aana had met her math IEP goal and then some. Aana’s

confidence in math had improved and her ability to persevere in problem solving on her own
TEACHER WORK SAMPLE – (PORTFOLIO SAMPLE STANDARD 8) Mia Angelis

had increased considerably. I was excited to see Aana using strategies on her own and asking

for help when she was struggling. Asking for help was something that she had been working on

in social skills and it was a real win to see her use that skill in an academic setting.

During student teaching, I came to realize how challenging data collection can be. I also

realized that sometimes the most notable successes or academic/behavioral achievements

aren’t something that can be photographed. I found that the most important piece of data

collection was the behavior log that I sent home. It was written documentation acknowledging

that my student was able to make it through two academic periods without an outburst. It was

acknowledging that a student was able to finish a lesson without flipping a desk or using

profanity. At times, the most important data I collected during my ten weeks was not always

academic and it was not always summative. A behavior classroom is not easy, and I felt

underprepared and spread thin a fair amount of times. It was difficult to teach two different

grade levels, while also acknowledging the various developmental differences within those two

grade levels. After reflecting on my lesson plans that I taught and evaluating the learner

outcome of my students, I feel pleased with the strides my students made, but I know they are

capable of going even further. Although I will no longer be the teacher taking these students to

their next academic and behavioral goals, I look forward to hearing from my mentor about how

they continue to grow and advance in their academic and social settings.