Herbst 1

Victoria Herbst
Professor Suk
EDUC 230-01 Education Field Experience
Spring 2023
Rationale Statement-Standard # 9

Standard # and Title: Standard # 9: Professional Learning

The teacher engages in ongoing individual and collaborative professional learning designed to impact
practice in ways that lead to improved learning for each student, using evidence of student achievement,
action research and best practice to expand a repertoire of skills, strategies, materials, assessments and
ideas to increase student learning (“New Jersey Professional Standards for Teachers alignment with
InTASC,” 2014, p. #12).

Artifact: Post-Civil War and Reconstruction Project

Date of Completion: December 2022
Course Completed in: EDUC 212-01 Foundations of Education

Rationale Statement:
In this assignment, the professor split the class into groups and each group was assigned a
certain time period. After we got assigned a time period we had to do research about the education
system back then and events that occurred education-wise during the time period. I was in a group with
two other people and we got assigned The post-civil war and reconstruction era. As a group, we did
some research and divided up the work based on what we wanted to include in our project. I got
assigned to do the research and slides about the native american boarding schools. We spent about a
month working and collaborating on the project. After we turned in and presented the project we did a
self-reflection about the project and an evaluation of the other group members. This artifact relates to
Standard 9. Under the essential knowledge section, it says “ The teacher understands and knows how to
use a variety of self-assessment and problem-solving strategies to analyze and reflect on his/her practice
and to plan for adaptations/adjustments” (“New Jersey Professional Standards for Teachers alignment
with InTASC,” 2014, p. #12). After this assignment was turned in and presented the teacher required
everyone to do a self-reflection on the project. In this self-reflection, I had to analyze the work and effort
that was put into this project and the end product. I also had to reflect on the things I would have liked
to change about the project and the things I would do differently next time I do a project like this.
Self-reflection is an important part of teaching. By self-reflection, a teacher can know what works in a
lesson and what needs to be changed next time they teach the subject.
I learned a lot about myself as an individual and prospective educator. I learned that I don’t mind
working and collaborating with others. In the past group assignments were a lot more stressful than it
needed to be due to a lack of communication. While working on this artifact me and my group often
communicated with each other and kept each other up to date about our progress in our part of the
assignment. As a prospective educator, I learned how helpful an important collaboration can be. There
were some elements of this project that would not have happened if it was done independently. My
group inserted a voice recording on our slides so we just had to hit play instead of mesmerizing and
talking in front of the whole class. If it was not for my group I would not have been able to put a voice
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recording in the presentation. When one works and collaborates with others you get to see different
points of view and learn new ways of doing things.
I can definitely use this artifact in my professional practice. I can use it and other sources in the
presentation for a future lesson. If I do a history lesson based on the post-civil war and reconstruction
time period I can use the resources as a starting point to help with planning my lesson based on the
subject. I can also use it as a reminder of things that I learned about PowerPoint while setting up the
slides. I can take what I learned during that project and possibly use it in the future when I create my
own lessons.

Reference

New Jersey Professional Standards for Teachers Alignment with InTASC. (2014, August 4). Retrieved from
New Jersey State Department of Education:
https://www.state.nj.us/education/profdev/profstand/ProfStandardsforTeachersAlignmentwithI
nTASC.pdf