Ryan Knowlton-Grallert

Drexel University

Experience In Danielsons Domain 4

4A: From a self-reflection after a recent lesson.

While I like that I have found a workable pattern for class, I would like to reinvent class
in such a way as to take better advantage of such long periods. In the future, I want my
plans to have at least six activities, meaning something small besides the work on Fever
1793 and the core lectures. Fever 1793 has taken over too much of class and we are
making slow progress, for this reason the classes will be switching to chapter summaries.
I now have a better understanding of what it takes to do a book at the middle school
level and would be apprehensive to try such a long title again. Stories under 100 pages
would be best, this would translate to roughly 8 class periods, plus 2 for set-up and
conclusion. Fever 1793 is just over 20 chapters, meaning I would need to have students
reading 2+ chapters/class for this to be completed within that amount of time. Meeting
every other day, any more than 10 lessons is too long.

4B: Records are kept digitally and on paper. At the end of a lesson, I have all files related to
printouts, lecture materials, and resources saved both on my computer and online. Below is a
screenshot of my file organization system during student teaching.
4C: Strategy of sending home a short email as a homework alert. Depending on the school I am
working at, I also have prior experience with various online systems (Blackboard, Google
Classroom, and Schoology) for listing homework and future class plans for parents to see. I have
not had the experience yet, but I do hope to contact a handful of parents with positives about
their students who have made progress in my classroom before the end of my student teaching
placement.

4D: I hope to become more deeply established in the community where I teach in the future. I am
always open to the interests of colleagues and firmly believe in the autonomy of each teachers
classroom. The only way to encourage colleagues to perform better is to provide support for
them to do so. This morning, I was able to tell a science teacher about a video I had seen relating
to how people can hear the difference in sound between pouring hot and cold water. Had you
ever thought about that? It is related to viscosity and something I had never thought about before.
I am interested in the world and enjoy learning, I hope to be able to continue to bring that aspect
back to my school for the benefit of teachers outside of my discipline. Excitement about content
and world events among colleagues helps establish the academic focus we all want students to
have.

4E: I was able to attend one professional development day while student teaching. The
instruction was related to vocabulary instruction techniques and I made sure to try some
modified versions of what I had learned with my classes. In the end, I was not a big fan of the
particular strategies I tried in the middle school social studies context but I am always open to
being exposed to new tools.

In addition to formal professional development at the school, I am of course enrolled in a

graduate program seeking a Masters in Education. Once employed, I will gladly spend the
summers of my early career attending programs around the country and world which focus on
my content area. I am interested both in developing my abilities as a teacher, but also in building
my content base as a lifelong learner.