As a successful teacher, I will make sure effective instruction and student learning are taking place and that the purpose of the lesson is linked to the larger curriculum. As I progress as a teacher I will be able to anticipate student misunderstandings. Since I started my journey of observations in classrooms in 2003, I have been gaining much progress and I am finding ways to connect with the students with more ease. Currently, having only been at Richmond Elementary for a short time, I am already beginning to recognize who will need additional support through clear scaffolding and connecting with each student's interest. As I teach I strive to be proactive and ensure that the directions and procedures are clear, preparing for the possibility of some students not understanding the content. Even though my teaching and explanation of the content is thorough and clear, every student learns differently and at different paces. In several lessons I have taught students contribute to extending the content by explaining concepts to their classmates and suggesting strategies that might be used. When students begin to teach each other they are developing a higher level of critical thinking and mastering the content.

          When I taught my read-aloud lesson, my spoken language was extremely expressive, I would give the students who wanted an opportunity to read and find students asking if it was my turn to read again. Reading the book aloud, pausing for understanding, and explaining new vocabulary words is a great way for me as a teacher to extend students’ vocabularies, both within the discipline and for more general use.  

      Using my expressive tone and reading style I did a small lesson preparing three students for the mock trail the would perform at the Federal Building courtrooms.  Above you can hear the cold read, where the student only read their highlighted part and had never read it before.  After, we had a discussion of  some things that could be done to help the students part really com to life.  He asked me for a highlighter, so he could underline the words he struggled with. During the formative part we worked with those words and did an repetition practice of each one several times. Now when you listen to the summative assessment you will here my student spoken language much more expressive and he read with mor confidence.