Reflections

Dedicated Professional
I chose this artifact because it is a letter of recommendation from my supervisor, Robert
McKenzie. I wanted to put all of my letters of recommendation, but I chose this one because he
really understood my care for the students and my passion for teaching.
F.A.M.E. is a workshop I attended throughout both of my practicums. I would go to the
workshops with the grade-level I was currently with. We would work on computers at our own
pace to learn about F.A.M.E. (Formative Assessment for Maryland Educators), and how to
incorporate it into the classroom. This demonstrates how I am a dedicated professional because I
wanted to attend every workshop I possibly could to further my knowledge.
Instructional Leader
I was constantly trying to discover ways to have an effective behavior management plan.
My first grade class was a challenge, behavior wise, for both my mentor and myself. South Penn
has a card system where the students start out on green each day and if they misbehave they have
to turn to yellow, then purple, then pick which is an office referral. The card system didn't affect
my students so I wanted to find a plan to would want them to try to behave better. The first
artifact on the left is a sticker chart I created. If the students ended on green for the first half of
the day they would get a sticker, and if they didn't turn a card for the second half of the day they
would get another sticker. Their reward was extra recess if they filled up their row with stickers
by the end date. This was a great incentive for the students because they really wanted the extra
recess, and they didn't like to see the other students put a sticker up and they couldn't. The second
artifact is a picture of an app on my Ipad called Class Dojo. I had the students number for their

avatar and when they would call out or disrupt class I would mark it under their number. Also, if
a student did something good in the class I would give them a positive mark. At the end of the
day we would look at the class dojo and the students were able to see how many times they were
off task, or did something good. The students were amazed to see how many times I had to say
their name to stay on task.
I chose this second artifact because it demonstrates how I demonstrated the work to the
students and then they worked independently on the computers. Students would work on new
math problems on the website IXL. After learning the new math concept, we would do problems
together as a class then students would work independently on the website to further their
understanding. The students highly enjoyed doing their math problems on this website.
Continuous Assessor
I chose this artifact because it demonstrates that I am constantly looking at the students
scores to gather an understanding of what information they know. Group work is very important
for students. While reviewing the weekly math facts drill scores, I observed that a few students
were mistakenly adding when they were supposed to be subtracting. I put them into a group
where they received more instruction so they could learn the basic addition and subtraction facts.
This artifact is a graph of the growth of the students while they worked in the group and a few
samples of pre and post-tests.
I chose this second artifact because its how I saw growth within the unit. I taught a unit
based on mental images. The goal for the unit was for the students to gain an improvement for
reading comprehension. I was constantly evaluated, conferencing, and teaching different styles
for the students to learn how to use mental images while reading to improve their reading

comprehension. The artifacts attached is a graph from the pre and post-assessments, and the
rubric used for the unit.
Educational Advocate
I chose this artifact because it really shows how I strive to be an educational advocate. Once a
month at South Penn, students, parents, and teachers participate in a math night. I attended every
math night I could during my second practicum. My mentor teacher organizer of the event so I
attended to help out. I attached one of the handouts that the students take home to give their
parents that are attending.
I chose the second artifact because I want all students to want to learn and to be able to
learn. I always tried to have a variety of materials for each lesson so that all students can achieve.
The artifacts shown are pictures from a math lesson I taught about tangrams. I started with
reading a book about tangrams, then the students worked on a few tangrams together on the
Smart Board, the students then worked independently at their desks on their own tangrams
puzzles.
Collaborative Bridge Builder
I created a Weebly for the parents and students to be able to stay connected with their
students progress and for helpful reading websites they could look at together at home. This
allowed me to guide the parents on how to pick out appropriate books for their student and
encourage them to read together. This demonstrates how I am a collaborative bridge builder
because I was trying to connect to the parents not in the school.
The second artifact shows how I am a collaborative bridge builder because I organized
with the first grade team on this unit. The first grade students were learning about how

caterpillars become butterflies. The first grade team and I collaborated and organized for the
students to have jar of caterpillars to observe throughout their life cycle. They would write in a
daily journal about the changes they observed, and also do different activities about the
caterpillars life cycle. Once the caterpillars were in their chrysalis we moved them into large net
until they became butterflies. Once they were butterflies we set them free in the playground in
memory of two students that we lost in a house fire.

Reflective Decision Maker

After one of my observations, my supervisor added some suggestions to think about for
my next lesson. I really thought about his suggestions and was more aware of what I needed to
work on. The next math lesson he my supervisor observed, he did not have any suggestions for
me. He told me that he could tell I worked on what he suggested and I did a great job. I chose
this artifact because it demonstrates that I am a reflective decision maker. I took what he said and
implemented it into my teaching.
The second artifact shows that I am a reflective decision maker because after a math
lesson about subtraction didn't go as planned, I decided to reteach the lesson in another way.
Many of the students were still confused about when you subtract you have a lower number. We
made bird feeders for a different lesson so I thought it would be a good subtraction lesson. We
measured the bottle that had the bird food in it and wrote down the measurement the bird food
was. We then went out the following day to see what the measurement was. The students were
able to observe that it was lower than the previous day. We then made it into a subtraction

problem. This helped the students who were confused about subtraction because they were
actually able to see the bird food lower.