Formative Assessment |
I believe formative assessment is essential if our goal is to promote student learning and for our teaching to be effective. In the article “Working Inside the Black Box: Assessment for Learning in the Classroom” by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, they say that “assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting students’ learning.”(Black & Wiliam, 1998) I believe that through formative assessment we can best understand and measure student growth and progress. As educators, one of our biggest priorities is promoting student learning and therefore it should be at the forefront of all of our planning, instruction, and reporting. In order to facilitate learning for all students, we need to understand where they are in order to move forward in a way that benefits their learning. Effectively utilizing both formative and summative assessments to promote and measure student learning as well as to influence my own teaching is something I hope to do in my own classroom.
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Growth Mindset |
I believe that promoting growth mindset in the classroom is one of, if not the most important thing to have in place when promoting student learning. Carol Dweck coined the term growth mindset to describe a mindset that believes that a brain can get smarter and that effort results in improvement. In order for our students to learn, they first need to believe that they can. I plan to promote a growth mindset through modelling it in my teaching and assessment practices and explicitly teaching it to my students. I believe it will equip my students with a mindset that encourages them to take risks and embody the successful learner traits without fear of failure as a negative thing. I think that having a growth mindset is a skill that transcends way beyond the classroom and it will provide students with the skills to be the lifelong learners we hope them to become. With a growth mindset culture in the classroom, students have the freedom to stretch and improve themselves without fear of comparing to others or feeling inadequate in a certain area. I believe that promoting a growth mindset also helps students learn how to set and reach goals and allows for individualization and differentiation based on where each student is at and wants to get to.
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RELationship between theory and practice |
In order to best meet all of my students needs, I need to be constantly changing and evolving the methods and practices I use to meet them. In a book by Harry and Rosemary Wong, they say "don't teach how you were taught," (Wong & Wong, 2015) their point being that the field of education is one that is constantly evolving and improving and if you are not evolving and improving with it, you are probably not meeting the needs of all learning in your classroom. If you are to be an effective teacher you need to be able to understand and apply new theories to your practice in order to meet the diverse needs of the learners in your classroom. Part of being a career-long learner (TRB Standard 7) is constantly looking for ways to improve and in order to meet the needs of diverse learners, it is important to adapt your teaching in ways that will help them best learn. In order to have a focus on student learning, there needs to be an understanding of the current learning theories and the ability to create an environment and program informed by them that targets all learners and allows each child to be successful.
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