4a Reflecting on Teaching
Sticky Notes
My mentor teacher comes weekly to observe me and leaves me sticky notes of what she liked about my lesson, what I need to work on, and what my objectives were. Every week I look at these and reflect on what I can do to make myself better as a teacher. This has been a great self-reflecting tool for me as I finish up my student teaching. It is great to get feedback from a senior teacher that has been in my shoes to help my development of my profession as a Physical Education Teacher.
4b Maintaining Accurate Records
ABC Charts
To help keep track of behavior on certain students. I write down behaviors that have occurred in my class and the possible reasons that they reacted that way. I found that this is a great tool to have in my teacher tool box to help students improve their behavior in the gym. I found it to be helpful with some student and others not so much. Since we have a behavior specialist, she deals with these behaviors and communicates with me about future individual behavior plans. Maintaining these records helps me as well as other specialists that come and work with my students to see the past history of behaviors and we can do to promote healthy behaviors.
4c Communicating with Families
Physical Education Report Cards
Communicating with families is a huge part of the report cards. For my first quarter of report cards I send home these report cards to all of my students families to make sure that their is no grey area on what I am grading on. This helps relay a message that PE is not just solely graded on participation, there are numerous items that my students are graded on. I think that this is very beneficial not only to the parents but myself also to see if I need to improve if all of my students are lacking in one area. I will continue to do this grading system to ensure that my students families gain the best education possible in my classroom.
4d Participating in the Professional Community
Lights on After School Celebration Program
When I was in elementary school I was able to be a part of the after school program though my school district. I had the awesome experience to be a part of the Lights on After School community event. The Lights on After School event is a nationwide event that helps celebrate the effort and role that the after school program has left in the lives of the teachers, students, parents, and communities. In preparation for this event, I prepared a speech about my experience with the after school program as well as, a dance performance for the whole kindergarten. The week before the event I did a dance unit with the whole school. In all my classes they learned the dances that they were preforming at the event. Attached is the Lights on After School celebration program that was handed out to all the parents that attended. Being a part of this event helped build a stronger relationship with the community members.