Running head: TEACHING REFLECTION 1

Teaching Reflection

James Capps

IUPUI

EDUC-L505
TEACHING REFLECTION 2

Teaching Reflection

My school operates on eight-week terms, and Term Three, the current term, is the most
difficult for students. During these times there is a great deal of higher-paying holiday work
available to our students, and many of them choose to work extra hours in order to provide for
their families during the holidays. At a meeting last week, we discussed the fact that our student
productivity was at its usual low for this time of year. We then planned a collaborative session
between teachers and life coaches and decided that our last week before break should be spent
getting students to mastery who are not there due to attendance.

I already knew that I would be reteaching some of the historical events that we had
covered in my class, so I planned a mini-lesson with a mastery ticket. After that, students who
were at mastery worked on an activity that required them to synthesize information across texts
that we have used in the class. Students who were not at mastery, spent the rest of the class
working with me on making up benchmark exams, which I am required to give, or just working
on reading comprehension to better prepare them for their next exams.

Students who were working on the mastery activity were engaged in areas 2,3, and 5 of
the Five ESL Curricular Guidelines. Students were engaged in in area 2 as they were using a
variety of texts, some of which we had not read yet in class, to brainstorm information before
they started their group project. Curricular Guideline 3 was also present after students
brainstormed; the next part of the assignment required them to collectively make a playlist that
would accompany the Columbian Exchange, the historical unit that the lesson focused on. Each
student submitted the link to two songs from YouTube that they believed were relevant to the
issues that they had discussed during brainstorming. This activity also included number 5 on the
Curricular Guidelines as some of the texts that students used were written narrative texts.

Students who were not at mastery spent the remainder of class time with me. Some were
simply making up district-required benchmark tests that they had missed. Other students were
not at mastery because they had missed class and were struggling with concepts and skills. In
these activities I feel that numbers 1 and 4 of the Curricular Guidelines were present. We spent
time in class working with some simpler texts to prepare them for the texts that would be using
to complete missed assignments or to take benchmarks. Focusing on academic vocabulary was
also a large part of these sessions; students gained an understanding of what these terms means
before they were asked to use them on assignments or benchmark exams.

In both cases, I believe that teaching and learning was made visible. Students who were
working on the mastery activity were aware that I was asking them to engage in higher-level
thinking and that they were synthesizing information across texts to engage in a JPA. Teaching
and learning was made visible to students who were not at mastery as we worked on specific
skills that they identified they were lacking based on their own understanding, assignment
grades, and benchmarks.

This week was great practice in how I can more effectively use stations, ICs, and JPAs to
increase the learning of all students, regardless of where they are.
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