Hatr HoLiow Hits CenTRAL SCHOOL DisTRICT Doman Reryscrions Name DANIELLE TALLEUR ScHooL: HicH ScHooL East GRADE LEVEL: 9™ AND 107 Dare: $/7/16 How has your practice evolved during the year with respect to each of the four domains of the framework for teaching? For each domain, write a brief but insightful reflection. Refer to the component rubrics for ideas, but you need not Inelude each component, Domain 1 Planning and Preparation ‘As my first year progressed, | often found myself devoting a lot of time to designing learning opportunities that provided students with opportunities to connect newly synthesized ideas to concepts discussed in prior units. Through carefully constructed questions, either on student worksheets, exit tickets, or questions posed during class discussions, students practiced establishing relationships across the curriculum. As the year progressed, the level of support required to build these relationships from me, as their teacher, diminished. I drew ideas for my lessons from a variety of sources including other science teachers, the director of my department, and professional development workshops | attended during the school year. Following each lesson, I wrote some ideas on post-it notes for some things f would do differently in the future to make the lesson better. ‘Abig challenge I faced this year was how to appropriately challenge the two sections of honors living environment classes I taught. Each one of my classes had a very diverse population of students. One of my honors classes contains a Jot of students with individualized education plans. Students inthis class usually require mare time on tasks and some extra clarifications from me in order to successfully meet learning outcomes. {carefully pair students inthis class together for group work according to their strengths and weaknesses which I learned through careful observations daring class, academic performance on assessments, through student reflections, and through corarmunication with Parents. I frequently communicate with their resource room teachers to discuss any behavioral or time management issues for completing long term assignments. My foundations living environment continues to test my ability to understand different levels of language proficiencies. Half ofthe students in this class are ENL students. This makes daily communication and instruction extremely difficult. 1 utilize many different sources to overcome this challenge such as, glossaries which contained domain specific vocabulary in both English and their native language, utilization ofthe laptops (whenever available) so that students ‘could use "Google translate” to translate other words they did not understand, and often reaching out to their guidance ‘counselor to gain some insight into their backgrounds. Ke Domain 2 The Classroom Environment Establishment of a class routine, starting withthe first day of school, has really allowed students to work efficiently from bell to bell. Asa result of our routine, i believe students feel more comfortable in the classroom because they know what to expect and what they need to do in order to succeed. | feel as though I have been successful in my pursult to create a warm, caring, and welcoming environment where students feel at home and are comfortable to take risks, unhindered by the fear of being wrong. I notice that students are eager to participate and share what they know with the rest of their peers during class discussions, During group work, I notice that interactions among students are highly respectful and many students take it upon themselves to catch-up a student who may have been absent the previous day. always try to check in with students weekly about their workloads in their classes, espectally my honors students because I know they place a lot of pressure on themselves to succeed. I reward my student's efforts with positive reinforcement by sending postcards home to their families. I frequently ask students about extra curricular activities they are involved in and how their games/competitions have been going. | have also attended events such as the spring musical and “Half Hollow Hills Idol," to further show students that I support their interests outside of the classroom.Domain 3 Instruction ‘This year at the beginning every topic, I told students the title ofthe new unit and asked, “What do you already know?" I utlized many different strategies such a, holding a lass disqgssion and having students anomalously writing what they know about topic on a post-it note which they tuck to the board. The next couple of minutes were spent discussing what students had written down. Simple techniques such as this only took about 5 to 10 minutes but allowed re to identify misconceptions that need tobe addressed before moving forward in the unit. During this time, many new vocabulary words were introduced and defined. Next year I would like to create a word wall for each unit to build on students vocabularies. In an effort to meet the needs of the different types of learners I had in my classroom, I carefully designed hands-on laboratory activities, researched for informational videos and animations, and provided clear organized notes connecting to thelr interests whenever possible. I found myself utilizing many different resources such as Sumanas Inc, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Discovery Channel, and even Brainpop to provide students with an array of visuals, animations, and activities. I provided students with the links to the resources on my Eboard so that students could review them at home. ‘Students had opportunities to reflect on their learning through completion of an array of exit tickets with prompts such 1s, Tneed more practice with..” and questions such as, ‘What confused you most in class today?" and “What could you have done today to help yourself earn better” The exit tickets and do now activities also served as a type of formative assessment which helped me gauge where the students were when it came to meeting the learning objectives. I worked very hard through the school year to provide students with extremely quick feedback on their assessments which they really appreciated. At thé end of each quarter, I had students complete a personal evaluation of themselves. Students outlined three areas of improvement for the next quarter. Next year I would like to utilize weekly learning reports in ‘which students engage in metacognition about the week's topic, Domain 4 Professional Responsibilities In order to maintain accurate records, | ensure that my eboard and infinite campus display the most up-to-date {information regarding assignments and grades so that students, parents, and myself are all on the same page. In addition, | maintain records of daily student attendance, extra help attendance, and alog of all parent contact through both email and phone. Throughout the school year, students have contributed to the maintenance of accurate records ‘by keeping track of their labs minutes and grades in order to meet the requirements to take the Regents exam in June. Communication with parents is frequent through use ofthe Infinite campué messenger, emails, and phone calls. ‘Throughout the year [ have sent parents/guardians reminder emails concerning exams, long term assignments, review ‘schedules, SAT Il information, and Regents exam information. I frequently communicated with parents of my foundations about extra help sessions. Many of my foundations students have asked me to email their parents to let ‘them know they are staying after school for extra help. L also send out emails to parents when Lam concerned about student progress and suggest areas for improvement. [also make contact with families for positive reasons such as ‘good test scores by mailing home postcards which encourage studeits to keep up the good work. Collaboration with other teachers was completed frequently throughout the school year. ! often communicated with my colleagues regarding the pace of instruction to ensure that I was on schedule to cover all topics prior to the end of the ‘school year. | also sought collaboration regarding the set up and effective management of some of the required state Jabs in an effort to maximize instructional time. 1 shared some lessons with my colleagues, such as review bingo, and ‘many activities I designed for forensics, which I found to be successful. also sought guidance from my mentor when it ‘came to communicating effectively with parents and designing lessons for formal observations. Next year, I would like to communicate more frequently with the ENL teacher to design assignments focused on building student's vocabularies. ‘Throughout the school year Ihave volunteered to chaperone events such as the spring musical, “Nice Work If You Can Get It" and Hills Idol. | was also a coach for Science Olympiads at Candlewood Middle School. In January I volunteered to grade the Living Environment Regents Exams. In addition to these events, I have also participated in 15 hours of professional development, exceeding the required minimum. I have found all of the professional development classes ‘extremely helpful, especially the one on google classroom which I utilized for Science Olympiads, Inthe near future, | will also be enrolling in graduate courses to further expand my content knowledge. Lastly, I supported the Half Hollow Hills community by becoming a member of the PTSA.Highlights for the 2016 School Year (highlights related to professional practice) + _ Coached a successful season for the Candlewood Science Olympiad Club T chaperoned school events such as the Spring Musigal, “Nice Work If You Can Get It” and Half Hollow Hills Idol Judged student designed experiments at the 2016 Long Istand Science Congress Participated in the New Teacher Mentorship Program Completed 15 hours of Professional Development Programs “Covered a colleague's Regents Living Environment class for one week while she was absent. Frequently communicated with parents regarding thelr student's progress with postcards, emails, and phone calls. ‘One Area to be Extended and/or Refined in Your Professional Practice ‘+ _ would like to expand on my professional practice by attending more educational conferences through STANYS. and NSTA + -_I would like to complete additional graduate classes to further expand on my content knowledge, + LI would also like to continue to try new teaching strategies. This form will be attached to Summative Report LL ‘Teacher's Signature Date o[eib Administrator Date