Dimension of Effective Teaching: Standard 1 -- Curriculum, Planning, and Assessment

Description: This professional teaching standard asks that teachers thoughtfully plan and
present curriculum that will best help students be successful. There are three main aspects to
this standard. First, teachers should have a solid understanding of both the content they are
teaching and the age group that they work with. This knowledge should be applied to the
creation of rigorous, well-structured, standard-based units and lessons. Second, teachers should
use a variety of assessments and assignments to track student performance. Teachers should
adjust their lessons in response to the results of these assessments, and this could mean
implementing various strategies for differentiation, remediating missing skills, or changing the
pacing of a unit. Finally, teachers should work with colleagues to examine data and share
conclusions.
Successes:

Challenges:

Area for Growth:

Students read a variety of

rigorous texts in my class,
including class novels, primary
sources, and short articles. I
am successful at explicitly
teaching reading
comprehension strategies. We
do many close readings,
answer document-based
questions, and use strategies
such as turn-and-talks, thinkpair-shares, and stopn jots to
make connections and to
reflect upon what we have
read.

This year some of my lessons

have been more teacherdirected than I would like. I
build in opportunities for
structured conversations and
pair-work, but group-work time
has been limited. While I
would love to do more jigsaw
readings, book clubs, and
other text-based collaborative
learning activities, I would like
more ideas around how to
implement routines where
students stay on task and can
complete these activities
successfully.

Some areas for growth would

be incorporating additional
opportunities for structured
group work into my lessons in
order to encourage
collaborative learning. I also
would like to assign an
increased amount of
formal/intensive writing
assignments into my
curriculum.

Artifacts:

Resources:

I have been teaching a unit adapted from

Facing History: Choices at Little Rock. The
lessons and activities both include rigorous
texts and have many opportunities for textbased collaborative learning activities.

Peer Edit With Perfection

In my lessons I have increased:

- Close readings of rigorous primary sources
- Regular use of both primary sources and
nonfiction articles
- Many turn-and-talks / think-pair-shares /
stopn jots
- Increased use of jigsaw reading activities
- Use of peer editing /collaboration on writing

This online lesson plan and accompanying

materials are aimed at students in upper
Elementary school; however, they could be
easily used with my 8th graders. I really liked
the explicit handouts on how to peer edit,
especially the practice sheet that came with an
answer key.

projects
- Written reflections for Exit Slips
Reflection:
I chose to highlight my increased use of text-based collaborative learning activities because that
was one of the main areas for growth that I identified for myself. The most significant change that
I have made in the way I structure my lesson plans is that I have built in regular jigsaw-reading
activities. These activities allow students to collaborate as they comprehend and analyze a text,
and then help to further promote understanding by having students teach each other what they
have learned.
Future Learning Goals:
I would still like to broaden my application of collaborative strategies, and I want to continue to
infuse my lessons with more formal writing assignments, I have been making strides to improve
my practice.