Critical Event Reflection

Analyze your performance during clinical practice of any nature (i.e., assignment, benchmark assignment,
internship activity). For all field experience assignments and at least once a week during completion of
professional skill development activities in clinical internship, analyze the/a critical event. Complete and submit
all sections of the Critical Event Reflection. Your course instructor will apply a rubric to this record as a means
of assessing your professional skill and dispositional development, and you and your peers will use one
another's responses as the basis for weekly discussion in the class forum.
A. What were the setting and circumstance of the critical event? (Describe any precipitating events; identify the social
structures at play; and articulate any other essential contextual information.)
I meet with our assistant principal who oversees our academic data with NWEA MAP testing. She was
able to explain to me what we do throughout the school year to evaluate the students and how she
proceeds with working with teachers to better help the students.

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B. What occurred, and what choices were made? C. What were you thinking and feeling?
(Make a bulleted list, third-person perspective) (Make a matching list, first-person perspective)
- The students takes a MAP benchmark three times
in the beginning of the school year, at the midyear
mark, and at the end of the school year.
- After the first benchmark test is completed the
assistant principal looks over the data and
compares it to the previous school year as well as
the end of the school year of the grade prior. Then
she will rank the students in order from the lowest
percentile to the highest percentile. This is where
she works with teachers and grade levels to
determine how to best help those students in the
bottom 10th percentile ranks.
- After the students completed the midyear
benchmark test, she will pull a
projection/summary report and organize the
students from the lowest to the highest by
percentile rank. Those who did not meet their
projected growth will be invited to ASAP tutoring
where they will receive extra help to work on the
standards they are missing or struggling with. She
looks at this for both math and reading. ASAP
tutoring is for students in 3rd-6th grade and
currently 60% of those invited are attending with
the majority of those students being in 3rd grade.
- Then finally at the end of the school year the
students take their final benchmark test and the
assistant principal looks to see who made their
projected growth from the beginning of the year.
Then she will compare the school’s data to other
schools within the district to see how the school
did as a whole.
- During this entire process the assistant principal
will keep a close watch on Move On When Read
for K-3 to ensure that the students are reaching
their highest potential and are ready when it comes
to state testing.
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- Hearing and understanding more about the school’s
MAP benchmark testing made me realize that
beyond my classroom there is so much more that it
entails to ensure a school is successful in all areas
of academics.
- I didn’t realize that at the beginning of the school
year after the students finished the first benchmark
test that we compared the students to the previous
school year and their previous scores from the end
of the school year. This really helped me see and
understand that the majority of students stay
around where they ended, but there is some
changes for others.
- Having a better understanding of how students are
selected for ASAP tutoring helped myself better
understand why we are so focused on the students
projected growth and if they have met it or not.
When students do not meet their growth we have
always put an emphasis on helping them more, but
now I understand the reasoning behind it.
- I always knew at the end of the year we looked to
see how many of the students met their projected
growth from the beginning of the school year, but
never knew that we compared ourselves more with
other schools than just classes within our grade
levels. It is very eye opening to see how many
schools are similar in their projected growth, but
then there are times that some are higher and we
look towards see what they did to better help their
students.
- Move on When Reading is such a vital aspect to
keep an eye on, but before this I always thought it
was just a visual to show where each of our
students are at overall as a whole and who is at risk
for possibly needing to be retained or looking at
testing for an IEP. Now I understand its there to
help us better understand how to help the students.
D. Reflect on what the event means to you in the context of your research base. (Cite author, year.) What do you
understand more clearly about whether or not the chosen actions reflected best practice?
This event really helped me better understand the importance of students knowing and understanding where they
are at academically. If a student has no idea where they are at academically then they are not confident in their
own abilities to achieve their highest potential. Students who are confident in their academic abilites are more
motivated intrinsically and will show higher achievement, (Jansen, Lüdtke, & Robitzsch, 2020). When the school
as a whole can work with students to better understand where they are at with their projected growth through a
benchmark test the more the students will invest in their capabilities and learning the required content to become
the best student they possibly can. This cannot happen with out an administrative team that works closely with
teachers to show students how they did and what they can accomplish.

E. Consider the implications these insights have for your practice. In other words, what change(s) would be reflected in
your disposition and your work, based on how you now anticipate thinking and acting?
Data is a huge aspect of any school system and knowing that it is something that needs to be planned out carefully
and followed through with is something that makes me wonder how does one have enough time. However,
deligating and working as a team to ensure all data collection and analysis occurs is key. I would love to make it
more of a team effort here at my school rather than having it be based on one person and they are trying to
determine the data for all grades levels and then work with those teachers.

F. Aligned leadership skills and professional dispositions reflected and/or warranted in this event.
(Briefly indicate the rationale for each alignment, including those not reflected, but warranted.)
With having this understanding of how more detailed the school is at looking at the academic data it makes me realize that
even as a classroom teacher I could have done more to better understand the data. This is something that I have never
truly realized before this and now know what I need to be able to do moving forward to ensure the success of all
students of a school.

G. Evidence/Artifacts that align to school vision and mission. (List, describe, and briefly indicate the rationale for each
item. In cases where alignment is problematic, briefly discuss how evidence/artifacts do not support fulfillment of
vision and mission.)
With what my school offers to help struggling students with things like ASAP tutoring it supports our vision of
every student succeeds. We need to find those areas that those students need help and work on them to support
those students to ensure their success is obtainable within their reach. Then also to incorporate different
interventions within the classrooms from our highly qualified teachers with motivated students like mentioned in
our mission.

H. Notes/comments

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