SCIENCE CLASSROOM
J.Fox
Below you will find my two professional growth goals for the year. I wanted to have both a culture goal as well as an academic goal because both are important aspects of creating a supportive and engaging classroom.
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Culture Goal:
Circulate the room with purpose to monitor student investment, work, and learning, while also taking note of needs for adjustment to the curriculum.
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Academic Goal:
Create accommodations, embed strong instructional practices, and apply scaffolds are applied strategically. Multilingual Learners (MLLs) and Students with Learning Differences (SWLDs) will have scaffolds, visual and otherwise, intended to support access while preserving the cognitive complexity of the text/task.
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The CTSP Inquiry Foci cycles are be aligned with these two growth goals to ensure that my growth is connected to the objectives and vision I have for my development as a professional educator.
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Beyond Induction Professional Goal:
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Continue to adapt to students needs, create more versions of tasks with different sets of supports, and apply new teaching practices implemented this year into my future years of being an educator. I will also continue making my classroom a supportive and welcoming place where students feel that they can be themselves and be vulnerable in this space. This is an area of need because with each year, there is a new set of students with a new set of needs, which means adaptation to those things is a necessary part of planning.
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Actions to Take:
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Over the summer, I plan to adjust preexisting documents to implement the teaching practices that I developed and collected data on this year through the CTI program. When school starts again next fall, I will be tracking progress of assignments similarly to how I collected and tracked data for each inquiry cycle. I am also planning to incorporate outcomes in Canvas (our course platform) which will allow me to more accurately know how students are doing on the course standards. Valuing students' opinions is something that I make an important part of adjusting instruction, so I would consistently ask for their input on the activities, tasks, labs, and exams. My goal attainment would be measured in having data tracked effectively and comprehensively as well as student success and growth throughout the semester and year.
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Actions to Remain Connected, Sustain Energy, and Passion:
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Much of what I do to stay connected throughout the year includes things like taking time to get to know students by asking them about who they are outside of being a student; taking time to recharge with activities that I love to do like knitting, watching anime, and spending time with family; taking time off when I feel overwhelmed or like I need extra time to work on things like preparing activities or grading. I am working towards finding a better balance of my career as a teacher and my life outside of teaching. It definitely is difficult at times, but I am learning that the support I have from my family also helps me go through the challenging parts of being an educator and finding a work-life balance. I will always be passionate about education and for the foreseeable future, passionate about teaching in the classroom.
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Advice to New Teachers:
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1. Not everything you have planned will be possible to enact or complete throughout the year, and there will be some projects that you'll begin and not finish. That is ok. It does not say anything about you as a teacher, just that you were a little overambitious, and learning along the way.
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2. It will feel like you need to work every day of the week because of planning and grading. But, it is not necessary. Take half a day or even a full day on the weekend and recharge, do something that you love to do because that will allow you to have more sustainability in the field earlier in the year.
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3. Saying goodbye to students every year doesn't get any easier, but find ways to process your emotions, in my case, I feel very melancholic. This year, I decided to write little notes to each of my seniors and included origami stars with the notes. This helped me process my emotions and honor the time spent learning about who they are as people.
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These are two pictures of the small star pockets & letters I made for my 2023 seniors.
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