1d.

Selects appropriate formative assessments to monitor learning;

Formative assessments are assessments that allow me to monitor student learning to

provide ongoing feedback that can be used to improve teaching and student learning. I

use exit tickets to assess whether or not my students were able to fully grasp what we

covered in the lesson. Exit tickets check for understanding through a few questions that

cover all of the information we discussed in class. In this example, I used these exit

tickets to decide whether or not the students understood the lesson that we did. The

results of their exit tickets will also allow me to determine if we are ready to move on to

the next part of the unit or are ready to move to the next unit.
1a. Aligns instruction with state-adopted standards at the appropriate level of rigor;
 As I design and plan each of my lessons, the main factor that is used to focus each lesson

is the state standards. I use the state standard as the backbone of the lesson. Without the state

standard I have nothing to guide my lessons on and they are not designed around a specific

academic topic that my students need gain knowledge around. The state standards are used to

design the essential questions, and the objectives that I want all my students to have. I also

connect the state standard to the previous standards and the future standards that are related to

the overall topic. This helps students see the connections that each standard has to each other.

2. The Learning Environment: To maintain a student-centered learning environment that is safe,

organized, equitable, flexible, inclusive, and collaborative, the effective educator consistently:

2a. Organizes, allocates, and manages the resources of time, space, and attention
My CT and I organize and manage our time with a very detailed schedule that we follow strictly,

which makes sure we allocate plenty of time to all the subjects throughout the day. If the

schedule gets altered for some reason we are able to smoothly adapt to the changes while making

sure to still allot adequate time to all subjects.

Along with managing and allocating her time well, I have observed that my CT does a good

job of managing her classroom space. She has an oddly shaped classroom that is in the shape of a
pentagon and the majority of the walls are made from red bricks which makes it extremely

difficult to hang things up. Despite all her obstacles she still manages to keep the classroom

flowing fairly smoothly. She has the student’s desks all touching so conserve as much space a

possible and she uses chair pockets instead of cubbies to conserve space in the classroom. She

uses a good amount of space for her class library. Her class library is something that she cares a

lot about. We both feel that allowing the students a large amount of reading choices will

encourage these new readers and gives them an opportunity to explore different genres of books,

in order to discover what they are interested in. Another portion of my CT’s classroom is

designated as a play area for the students. This area has a variety of toys and activities for the

students to engage and explore their playful sides, it is a way for the students to get in touch with

their inner child.

 In addition to controlling and managing her physical classroom she has various ways that she

able to manage her student’s attention. She does this with her various attention getters that she

uses. Some of the most commonly used attention getters are:

-Teacher: "Class, Class"

Students: "Yes, yes"

- Teacher: "1,2,3 eyes on me"

Students: "1,2,3 eye on you"

- Teacher: "Holy Moly"

Students: "Guacamole"

*(This is the attention getter that I introduced to the class!) *

http://msmeitznerselementaryeducationblog.weebly.com/learning-environment-blog/blog-5

2b. Manages individual and class behaviors through a well-planned management system;
 We use a clip system in our classroom that has 3 behavior levels on it. All students start at

the “Ready to Learn” level, which is where all students start every day. If they exhibit negative

behaviors throughout the day, they will be asked to move their clips down to the “Warning” or

“Consequence” part of the chart. My CT decides if the student’s behavior is unexpectable enough

to be asked to skip the “Warning” portion of the chart and go straight to “Consequence”. If a

student had to move their clip down at some point in the day, they have the opportunity to move

their clip back up to “Ready to Learn” if they show good behaviors and positive interactions with

their peers. This is a behavior management system that is well known by the students and has been

used in their previous classrooms in the years leading up to 3rd grade.

2c. Conveys high expectations to all students;

This picture shows how I do not discriminate against my students for any reason. Each

student is given equal opportunity to excel and I hold each student to the same standard and have

high expectations of all of them regardless of race, color, religion, sex,…etc.. All students have
the opportunity to get full points. This system leaves no room for favoritism and shows that I

have high expectations for all my students.

When I am in the classroom and we are doing activities, or working in small groups I expect all

the students to try their hardest and get their work done to the best of their abilities. Students who

I know have a hard time staying motivated, I make sure to check on them during individual work

time and encourage them to keep on doing a good job. If there are corrections that need to be

made I gently tell them that they should look at their answer or sentence again to see what might

need to be changed.

2d. Respects students’ cultural linguistic and family background;

During the winter months, there are a lot of holiday themed books and activities that may

be tempting to incorporate into lessons but when I am in my intern classroom I understand that

there are a few students in our classroom that do not celebrate these holidays so as a result I had

to keep them in mind when coming up with fun winter themed lessons. The class has two Jewish

students and one Jehovah Witness who do not celebrate specific holidays. I wanted to make sure

to respect their culture and their families background, so I adjusted the theme certain lessons to

make sure they were based off of simple non-holiday related winter elements such as snowflakes

and snowman’s, instead of Christmas trees and Santa Claus.

2e. Models clear, acceptable oral and written communication skills;

During my time interning my CT and I have modeled clear, acceptable oral and written

communication skills while working with the students. When creating worksheets, writing on the

board, and/or working with the students independently my CT and I have both made sure to use

clear, grammatically correct, and acceptable oral and written communication skills. When

preforming a read aloud I make sure to articulate words when necessary, involve changes in tone

and emotion based on the emotions in the text, and made sure that the topic of the book was

portrayed correspondently with the way I read it. My CT and I both follow the same written

requirements that are expected of our students such as allowing adequate amount of space

between words, using capital and lowercase letters accurately, applying punctuation marks

correctly, and finally ensuring that our hand writing is easy to read. It is important to be a model

for the students, especially when they are still developing their writing and communication skills.

Modeling wrong or bad oral and written habits can have a big impact on these students who are

at such impressionable stages in their academic lives.

 Here are a few examples of writing that was clear and easy for the students to read. If I did

not write the problems with clear written communication, then the students would have had a hard

time understanding and executing the solving of the problem.

2f. Maintains a climate of openness, inquiry, fairness and support;

Accountable talk is how I maintain an openness, inquiry based and supportive classroom.
Accountable talk is an explicitly taught talking strategy that is taught to the students to help them

communicate in the most acceptable and appropriate manner. It gives students the chance to

communicate amongst their peers in a polite manner. By teaching students this strategy students

are learning how to communicate with others in a manner that shows respect and openness to other

ideas. With accountable talk we are teaching students that, although they may have different

opinions they are still to show each other respect and listen to each other’s thoughts.

In my classroom we are also implementing a technique called “Talking Chips” that will

help to facilitate the talking that occurs in small group discussions. When students are asked to

discuss with their shoulder partners or group members we have noticed that not all students are

fully participating in discussions. There are various reasons why these students are not

participating; either they are choosing not to participate by choice and lack of drive or they are

not able to due to one student in the group dominating the discussion, leaving less room for all

students to add in their thoughts and opinions. By implementing Talking Chips this will allow for

all students to have an opportunity to talk and will bring and openness and fairness to classroom

discussions
2g. Integrates current information and communication technologies;

In my intern classroom, we have three desktop computers and one laptop computer that

the students have access too. The main computer program that the students use is called Istation.

It is reading program that allows the student to work interactively to practice their reading

comprehension. The program is student based and incorporates fun aminations, characters,

books, games, and activities that keep the students engaged. Not only is the program fun for the

students, but it gives the teachers feedback on student’s progress. At the beginning of every

month students take an assessment that checks on their development and then the teacher can

view their scores and compare them to the previous months to see where the student has

improved or need improvement.

In addition to using the computers for Istation my CT uses other programs on her

personal laptop that she then is able to project onto the screen for the students to view. She uses

educational YouTube videos when she is looking for musical inspiration to help students grasp a

certain topic. She also uses a math program called GoMath.com as a part of her math lesson. One

example of how she used this program was she was working on the math concept of putting

numbers correctly on a time line. The screen showed a timeline with missing numbers and then
she would call on the students to raise their hands and tell her which number she should drags to

put in the empty boxes, to fill in the timeline. The program gives hints and advice on how to

answer the question and provides praise when students get the answer right. The program would

benefit the students even better if my CT had a smartboard that would allow them to physically

touch the board and drag their answer into the correct box, but that is not something that is

currently available for students at this school.

2h. Adapts the learning environment to accommodate the differing needs and diversity of

students; and,

In my intern classroom, there are a few ways that I have personally accommodated a lesson

to fit the needs and diversity of the students. One way that I have specifically done this was

during one of the lessons that I had the students write what they were thankful for. One of the

students has a difficult time seeing and needs a larger area to write so I specifically designed a

specialized sheet for him. I made the text of the paper larger to accommodate for his vision
issues and then I made the designated area for him to write larger, so, he had more room. He

responded well to this accommodation.

One way that I have seen my CT differentiate a lesson to fit the differing needs and diversity

of her students was with a math lesson on the number 10-20 on a timeline. She designed the

lesson with her students differing skill levels in mind. Some of her students fully grasp being

able to put the numbers in numerical order and the other half of the class is still having some

trouble with putting the number is numerical order correctly. For the students who were still

having trouble she designed a large timeline and a set of number from 10-20 for the students to

put into order with a partner. The group of students who fully understand how to put numbers in

numerical order on a timeline were given a large timeline and two sets of numbers from 10-20.

The first set were simply the numbers from 10-20 but the second set was the written-out versions

of the number such as “fourteen” and “eleven”. She knew the students who were having

difficulty needed to work on putting the numbers in order but she didn’t want the students who

already knew it to be not challenged, that is why she gave them the word versions to have them

work on their recognition of that version of the number. This differentiation allowed both groups

of students to be challenged and gain something from the lesson.

2i. Utilizes current and emerging assistive technologies that enable students to participate in

high-quality communication interactions and achieve their educational goals.

One way that I have observed my CT using assistive technologies that enables high-

quality communication and helps students achieve their educational goals is through a program

that she encourages her students’ parents to sign up for called Remind. Remind is a program that

allows for real-time communication between teachers and parents. It removes the common issue

of unread emails and ignored handouts. My CT uses this program to communicate with her

student

parents whenever she needs to get into real-time communication. She is able to send out

reminders about assignments, events, and papers that need to be signed and returned. Sending out

emails and handouts are in the past this is a much more effective way to communicate with

parents and it helps keep them updated on what their student needs to be doing and things that

are going on in their school.

3d. Modify instruction to respond to preconceptions or misconceptions;

 In my lesson plans there is a dedicated section just for identifying the student’s potential

misconceptions and then in the step-by-step I point out how exactly I plan on addressing

misconceptions. I use the knowledge of the student’s potential misconceptions as I am planning

my lessons this way I can properly address the misconception early on in the lesson to avoid it

becoming a problem during the lesson. It also gives me a head up into what I may see during my

lesson and then I can be ready if it does happen to come up.

3j. Utilize student feedback to monitor instructional needs and to adjust instruction.

Following the completion of one of my lessons I had my students fill out this feedback

form. This form allows me to get the students feedback on the lesson. I think its important for

students to be able to voice their feelings in all aspect, even when it comes to the execution of

my lessons. My students had to rate different aspects of the lesson then list specific things that

they liked and disliked about the lesson. After reading and analyzing their responses, I used their

opinions to help plan and design the next lesson. The only problem I came across was some of

my students were not very descriptive when describing the things they liked and disliked.

4. Assessment. The effective educator consistently:

a. Analyzes and applies data from multiple assessments and measures to diagnose students’

learning needs, informs instruction based on those needs, and drives the learning process;
b. Designs and aligns formative and summative assessments that match learning objectives and

lead to mastery;

c. Uses a variety of assessment tools to monitor student progress, achievement and learning

gains;

Teachers should design formative and summative that are reliable and valid. With the

data that they collect from various formative and summative assessments they need to accurately

analyze each piece of data, then decide based on the data the students learning needs. With the

students learning needs, which were designated based on the data collected, design lessons and

learning objectives accordingly. Teachers are also expected to modify testing conditions to

accommodate students learning styles and levels of knowledge. The formative assessments that I

use include exit tickets, bellwork questions in the morning, self-assessments, and comprehension

checks throughout lesson.

5b. Examines and uses data-informed research to improve instruction and student achievement;

This FEAPS was achieved when I started doing research for my Internship wondering on

incorporating literature into math lessons. I used a variety of articles to base my inquiry
on and decide on how to choose books to put my wondering to the test. The articles I

used to inform my research were articles written with the idea that infusing math lessons

with literature can make a lesson powerful and even more worthy of the students

attention. Some of the articles were specifically focused on incorporating books in math,

but some were vaguer and just spoke about infusing curriculum together. All of the

articles gave me some interesting information on what books to use and how to use them

in the lesson. Each article is read, and important parts are highlighted and reviewed again

after reading the article for the first time.

Here is an example of one of the articles that I read that inspired and influenced my

wondering, the execution of my wondering and the way I interpret my data collected to

improve student achievement

d. Collaborates with the home, school and larger communities to foster communication and to support

student learning and continuous improvement;

At the start of our final internship, my fellow intern and I wrote up a letter to send to the

parents with the intention of informing them that we will be in the classroom regularly with their

students. We wanted them to be aware of who we were and what our role would be in the

classroom. Letting the parents know that we were going to be working with their students was

very important and it helped created a relationship of communication between ourselves and our

student’s parents. By giving the parents the option of contacting us as they pleased shows the

parents that we are there to answer any questions they may have regarding what we are doing in

the classroom. Even if the parents don’t actually contact us, just having that option if they did

shows them that we are there to help and that we are open to whatever they have to say.
6. Professional Responsibility and Ethical Conduct. Understanding that educators are held to a

high moral standard in a community, the effective educator adheres to the Code of Ethics and the

Principles of Professional Conduct of the Education Profession of Florida, pursuant to Rules

6B1.001 and 6B-1.006, F.A.C., and fulfills the expected obligations to students, the public and

the education profession.

The purpose is to set guidelines and rules that explicitly explain to teachers what

their responsibility as educators is to their students, colleagues and parents of their

students. With these specific details of what they are expected to do and act like

makes sure that teachers are aware that they are expected to “always be for the

student and for the development of the student’s potential” ("The Code of Ethics

and The Principles of Professional Conduct of The Education Profession in

Florida ") because the student’s success is their number one goal. If teachers

follow these codes they will be setting their students, colleagues, and themselves

up for long term success. The code of ethics is designed to have the teachers

protect the students’ safety and learning opportunity, give them equal opportunity

to learn, protects their rights to differing opinions, etc. As educators we are given

the responsibility of watching over these students while they are in our presence

and we are not only expected to keep them safe but also to make sure they are

given the best opportunity to learn.

Specific examples of myself following the Code of Ethics and Principles of

Professional Conduct of the Education Profession of Florida.

 1)

2)

3)
4)

Picture #1, 2, 3 are all images of my efforts to keep in confidence personally

identifiable information about my students. By covering up their names, using initials in

my lesson plans, and covering up the faces of my students in pictures, I am protecting

their identity. By doing this I am assuring that my students identity is safe while I use

evidence of their learning to show other colleagues, when I am allowing others to read

my lesson plans and when I show images of students working together.

Picture #4 shows how I do not discriminate against my students for any reason.

Each student is given equal opportunity to excel and I hold each student to the same
standard and have high expectations of all of them regardless of race, color, religion,

sex,…etc.. All students have the opportunity to get full points. This system leaves no

room for favoritism and shows that I have high expectations for all my students.