my museum of growth, change, and connections

My Museum of Growth, Change, and Connections

Presented by: Nicholas R. Baker

Personal Background

-I was born on September 26, 1989 in Roanoke VA. -I was homeschooled up until high school by my mother using a curriculum called Calvert from Baltimore, Maryland.

Personal Background

-After I was homeschooled I entered into public school by going to William Fleming High School in Roanoke. -While at Fleming I was enrolled in the IB program.-I graduated Fleming in June 2008 with IB college credit in both History and English.

High School Experience

College

Within the last 1.5 years within the Master’s program here at Tech I have learned a lot about teaching and applying content to the classroom.

I have also successfully completed both my Early Field

Internship Experience and Student Teaching. During both of my internships I feel I have developed

the necessary skills to become a social studies teacher. This will be supported by my evidence supplied in my E-portfolio and within this presentation.

Member of the Social Studs 2014

Why I Want To Teach? My Connections Between

Content and Life

People

Places

Events

Time

Perspective

WHY?

Why? Connections

History has always been my favorite social science subject.

I have always loved to study the issues that plague history such as revolutions, human rights, conflicts, government interactions, and various structures and institutions over time.

I have always been very fascinated by these issues

in that they are not dichotomous in that each one of these issues have many different various points of view attached to them.

Why do I like History?

I. Student Centered Instruction

II. My main goal is to help motivate my students to learn and to appreciate the study of history and to appreciate the social sciences in general. III. I want to help my students to develop the necessary skills to become historical thinkers and to adapt historical pedagogy to their daily lives. IV. The most important component of my philosophy for teaching is for my students to adopt critical literacy/thinking skills necessary to understand the various relationships and complex concepts found within the social sciences. V. I also want to help students to appreciate and to understand the importance of learning.

Teaching Philosophy: Why Do I Want to Teach?

My Growth As A Teacher

I have gone from writing lesson plans to being able to create an entire curriculum map and unit plan.

I have also been able to successfully implement a SMART Goal within the classroom to show students growth.

I have not only done these things but I have

also taught an entire 3-4 week unit in both USII and Civics/Econ during my student teaching.

My Growth as a Student Within the Program

Early field internship+ Student Teaching=484 Instructional Hours + 502 Other Activity Hours=986 total hours within the classroom this past year.

These two experiences have had a significant impact on me. I have learned so much in regards to both teaching in a high school and a middle school.

I Have Successfully Completed Two Internships That Have Shown My Growth

Evidence for Student Growth and my Growth As A Teacher

1st Evidence=Prior Knowledge Paper

-In the paper I was able to analyze two students at the high school level during my early field experience.

-These two students showed the impact that prior knowledge can have on their connection to the content.

1st Evidence

-This helped me to examine how various factors were involved in students construction of understanding regarding the content.

-I also realized that a students prior knowledge was a source of making connections by the student to the content. -This helped me realize the importance of harnessing the power of prior knowledge within the classroom in order to unlock a students full potential. -I also made my own first connection between instruction and student growth.

Prior Knowledge Cont…

Evidence #2 Literacy Paper

This paper was created during my teaching methods 1 class. This paper helped me realize the importance of relating content to the students.

This paper supported my claims found within the prior knowledge paper and solidified the idea that making connections is important for students when dealing with the social sciences.

Literacy Paper

“Students will start learning history when they see the point of doing so, when it seems interesting and important to them, and when they believe history might relate to their lives and futures. Students will start finding history interesting when their teachers and textbooks stop lying to them.” (Loewen, 2007, p. 354)

This quote had a significant impact on both my early field and student teaching experiences.

Lies My Teacher Told Me Quote from Literacy Paper

“Moreover, learning history entails teaching students to think quite differently than their “natural” inclinations. As Wineburg suggests, historical thinking may often be an “unnatural” act, requiring us to think outside familiar and comfortable assumptions and world views. Such work, then, requires both substantial knowledge and skill on the part of the teacher to help students learn historical content while expanding their capacities to use evidence, assess interpretations, and analyze change over time “(Ashby, Lee, & Shemilt, 2005, p.180).

Quote from How Students Learn History Mathematics and Science in The Classroom

Evidence #3 SMART Goal

Macro View

During the latter part of the school year, 100% of my students will make measureable progress in using evidence to support their persuasive writing. By the end of the school year, each student will increase his/her ability to use evidence by one level on the Middle School Instructional Writing Checklist rubric. Student scoring at a “4” in evidence will maintain their score. Furthermore, 85% will score at “proficient” 3 points or above on the Middle School Instructional Writing Checklist rubric.

My Smart Goal

-My SMART Goal was targeted towards my CT’s Civics/Econ honors class. This is a class that is needed to graduate. It is composed of 23 students that are 14-15 years old.

-Unfortunately, for the SMART goal I only had nine students out of the 23 turn in all three writing assignments from this class.

Background of Students/Sample Population

-Asked students to write a persuasive letter regarding three things that they would like to change about their school or the city.

-I had students write the letter to either city council or the school board.

Baseline Assessment

-FARTO: Format, Audience, Reasoning, Thesis, Organization.

-Four Square:

Instructional Sequence/Pre-Writing the Baseline Assessment

-I realized that many students drop evidence without a clear link to the main thesis of their assignment or their intended audience.

-This is something that I wanted to work with them on in that this is key to writing great essays in high school social study classes especially for honors.

Feedback

-For the mid-assessment I decided to do a persuasive DBQ essay.

-The essay was on the American Jury system and asked students to answer in favor or against, “Is the Jury system still a good idea today? Why or Why not?”

-The DBQ already had built in pieces of evidence through articles and mock essays in support and against the Jury system.

Mid-Assessment (DBQ Essay)

For the DBQ essay I wanted to help students to scaffold their use of evidence by going over each article and by analyzing the differences between an essay with evidence and an essay without evidence.

I also thought this was a great way to introduce using research by helping students analyze the articles provided and the good and bad essays that were already built within the DBQ.

Instructional Strategy for DBQ

I also really liked the two prewriting strategies that were used called chicken footing and bucketing.

Instructional Strategies DBQ cont…

-For the end of year writing prompt I decided to use a “Frankenstein Instructional Strategy” or FIS for short. I decided to meld the letter at the beginning of the year with the DBQ.

-I decided to have students write a persuasive letter to city council, sheriff, or to the mayor in regards to whether or not they believe a recent crime rate finding was accurate. For the letter I gave students various articles for them to use and went over each article in class.

End of Year Assessment

SMART Goal:During the latter part of the school year, 100% of my students will make measureable progress in using evidence to support their persuasive writing. By the end of the school year, each student will increase his/her ability to use evidence by one level on the Middle School Instructional Writing Checklist writing rating rubric. Student scoring at a “4” under evidence will maintain their score. Furthermore, 85% will score at “proficient” with 3 points or above on the Middle School Instructional Writing Checklist rubric.

Smart Goal Revisited

Did I achieve my SMART Goal?

Micro View

Micro View Focusing on Two Students Writing

Conclusion: Making Connections

Making connections between student growth and instruction have played an integral part in my own growth as a teacher.

Connecting instruction with content was a key

connection that led to my successful completion of both my early field experience and student teaching.

These connections have helped me realize my own strengths and weaknesses as an instructor. In my opinion this has made me a better person and hopefully one day a wonderful teacher.

Connection between Student Growth and Instruction

All my life I have made connections between people, places, events, time, school subjects, and etc.

Everyday I find a new connections. Being able to realize these connections is the key to unlock growth.

Making and realizing new connections in my

personal opinion leads to being a successful teacher and a lifelong learner.

Conclusion