Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA)

Secondary EnglishLanguage Arts

Task 4: Analyzing Teaching

Analyzing Teaching Commentary
1. If you could teach these lessons to the same group of students again, what are two or three things you would do differently to improve the learning of these students based on their varied needs and characteristics? Consider missed opportunities and other aspects of planning, instruction, and/or assessment. If I could teach these lessons again to the same group of students, what I wish I could change the most is the ability to work one-on-one with more students. One of the hardest challenges Ive encountered while student teaching is not being able to reach every student the way I wish I could. Under perfect circumstances, I would be able to take even 5 minutes of time to conference with each student and get their feedback on what does and does not make sense. It would help me in my formative assessment process, and would help them learn the most they possibly can from the unit material. Looking back, I would like to figure out a way to hold short conferences with my students throughout the unit. I would consider them to be assessment checkpoints, where students could voice their concerns, frustrations, questions, etc. and I would be able to give necessary feedback.

This was such a fast-paced unit, with a heavy workload. Students were given a bright yellow packet at the beginning of the unit, which contained all deadlines in calendar and grid formats. However, at times I could see it got very overwhelming for students. Despite my reiterations about due dates and deadlines, students still struggled with staying on target. Looking back, I would have made a better effort to keep everyone organized and on point. Before class, rather than voicing deadlines and posting the occasional PowerPoint checklist, I would create a PowerPoint checklist for every day so that it stayed consistent. I would also be better about writing due dates on the board so students would have blatant reference.

2. Citing evidence from your experience teaching this learning segment, explain why you would expect these changes to make a difference in student learning. By resolving both issues, I believe the unit would ultimately be more organized and efficient. It became very frustrating for me when students turned in assignments late because of a missed deadline, or because students would not stay on task in class. As a result they fell behind and, due to the fast-and-furious nature of the material and assigned tasks, they fell behind on all of the following assignments. This ended up stressing them out and stressing me out. I tried to get everyone back on track but things inevitably became overwhelming. By stressing deadlines, and likely enforcing stricter late policies, I would not have run into that problem as often. In the end, students would learn more, and I would be able to help them out more with individualized needs.
Copyright 2011 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. maximum All rights reserved. Page 1 of 2 | 2 pages

Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA)

Secondary EnglishLanguage Arts

Copyright 2011 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. maximum All rights reserved.

Page 2 of 2 | 2 pages