Professional Responsibility

InTASC Standard 9: Professional Learning & Ethical Practice

The teacher engages in ongoing professional learning and uses evidence to continually
evaluate his/her practice, particularly the effects of his/her choices and actions on others
(learners, families, other professionals, and the community), and adapts practice to meet the
needs of each learner.
I want to be the best teacher I can be; attending professional development helps me do that by
improving my craft, keeping me informed, and continuing to be exposed to new ideas within the
education community. My student teaching semester took place at Bret Harte Elementary
School. Specifically, within the school I was able to attend different professional development
trainings required for new teachers prior to the school year. These included topics such as HIB:
Harassment Intimidation & Bullying, and identifying child abuse through the lens of the teacher.
Also, prior to this school year starting, I attended a professional development symposium
exploring creativity in the classroom and how to best engage and encourage our gifted and
talented students.
Throughout my time at Rider I have been exposed to many opportunities for professional
development, and this student teaching semester was no different. Within the seminar clusters
of Rider University, I was able to visit a student teaching cluster and attend an introductory
professional development centered around Responsive Classroom teaching. At Rider
University, I also attended many professional development workshops including the following:
Effective Questioning, which was a guide to inquiry-based instruction, Google apps for
Education Series, which is helping me become a google certified educator, the LinkedIn
workshop, the interview preparation event, the resume preparation event, the portfolio
workshop, the employment application preparation event, and the utilizing twitter in education
workshop.
My quest to improve myself professionally is not restricted to Rider University. Both in 2015,
and now 2016, I attended the New Jersey Education Association Teachers Convention in
Atlantic City to gain more knowledge through formal professional development sessions. During
the 2015 convention I attended Enhancing Literacy Learning Through The Arts, which talked
about different lesson strategies to keep students engaged while also being expressive, and
Gone Google? Accessibility Tools for Struggling Readers and Writers, which explored different
google extensions that can be used to help students who have trouble reading but would do
better by hearing a text read aloud, or those whose motor function makes writing difficult for
them but using speech-to-text technology could change their ELA performance immensely.
During the 2016 convention I received even more great professional development information.
In Reaching All Learners: The iPad in Special Education, I learned specifically about
accessibility features on the iPad to assist students across all spectrums of need within the
special education community. During iSTEM: Project-Based Learning in the 21st Century, the
model of using projects to engage and entice students to be leaders of their own learning was
displayed, not only in the math or science content areas but cross-curricular throughout any
subject matter being taught. Lastly, my attendance of Whats Not Impossible: Reflective
Lessons for Early-Career Teachers, helped remind me of the importance of lesson reflection
and constantly trying to improve my practice. I am a reflective teacher now, I create notes in my
lesson plans once they are over on what went well and what I should improve. However, this

professional development session reaffirmed my feelings on the importance of self-reflection

and gave me new ideas on ways to carry that out.
Within the Rider University community, and also independently, I am associated in different
professional organizations. At Rider University I am a member of our chapters of the New
Jersey Student Education Association and the Council for Exceptional Children. I have also
been invited, accepted, and inducted into the Alpha Beta Theta chapter of education honor
society Kappa Delta Pi, and the Rider University chapter of international honor society in
psychology Psi Chi. In addition to these student organizations, I also independently have the
yearly membership to the following: New Jersey Education Association, National Science
Teachers Association, and the National Council for the Social Studies.