Brianna Larkin
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Overview:Meeting Standard 4 demonstrates that I am confident and competent in leading many different styles of classroom activities. During my student teaching semester I led small group discussions, direct teacher presentations, socratic seminars, jigsaw reading activities, whole class discussions as well as using other techniques to teach students the content of the Paralegal course. Teacher PresentationsI learned how to script questions and how to use the board, overhead, and other visual tools when giving direct teacher presentations. Through this semester I discovered that many high school students cannot pay attention to direct teacher presentations that are longer than 15 minutes. I worked on limiting the time presentations lasted and using graphic organizers for the students to take notes. The graphic organizers kept them involved in the presentation and gave students a stronger reason to pay attention. I am beginning to understand the importance of building questions and starting with personal connections before teaching larger concepts. Teacher presentations are one of my strongest points as a beginning teacher. Collaborative ActivitiesMany of the projects and classroom activities I planned for the Paralegal class involved small group discussion and small group activities. Students used these discussions to understand their reading better, and to engage more with the content of the class. I learned that many times, having these discussions resulted in better student writing about the topics discussed. I also that these discussions worked better when students had questions to use and were required to write down their answers. This made students accountable for the discussion in class. Throughout most of the Brown Summer High School course, the students worked together in groups based on topics they chose during the first week. Having long term group work was a great way to allow students to help each other learn the information and take responsibility for their entire group. Questioning/DiscussionI improved my DTPs by learning how to use techniques like wait time, rephrasing, and repeating questions. During the first few weeks, it was very difficult to ensure that most students understood the concepts being discussed in class and it was a lot easier to make discussions geared toward higher level learners. After working on using scripted questions and on allowing wait time, it was easier to see the progress of most students. Development of Student SkillsI spent many of the classes focusing on working with students to improve their reading and writing. Because of the issues that many students at Central face, writing became the most important skill to address for my juniors and seniors. I taught students to improve their writing through teaching them about code-switching. I defined it as 'academic voice' and helped students learn that writing professionally has to be different than the way we speak. Student writing did improve significantly during the semester, as well as their ability to participate in class discussions. I also used many active reading strategies to help students connect with the text. The most effective strategies were KWR charts (know - want to know - reaction) and coding. Evidence:
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