Leadership Work

 

HWS Leadership Certificate Program Practicum Requirement

 

For the HWS Leadership Certificate Program I was required to partake in a substancial leadership role with significant responsibility, unique opportunity, and practical learning experiences either on campus or in a local or global community. 

 

My Practicum Leadership Role

 

My practicum leadership role was my position as a Student Teacher during the Spring 2014 semester.

• For the first seven weeks I taught in a 3rd grade classroom

• For the last seven weeks I taught in a self contained classroom containing seven students with severe autism.

While I have had other leadership roles on the HWS campus, such as my role as Secretary of William Smith Congress, and leadership roles within the Geneva Community, such as my role as a Qualitative Research Intern for Success for Geneva's Children, I decided  to use my role as a Student Teacher to fulfill my practicum requirement. I chose this role as a result of the fact that the education sector is where I want to be able to use the leadership skills that I have gained through the HWS Leads Program both now and in my future endeavors in helped to create both ground level and policy change in education.

 

Major Accomplishments In Each Placement 

 

Main Stream Placement: 3rd Grade Teacher:

• Acquiring essential classroom management skills and being able to successfully implement them with my students

• Learning how to read, adapt, modify, and finally implement a NYS Module 

• Completing and passing the edTPA, a teaching portfolio comprised of a 3-5 lesson ELA learning segment with a central focus, requsite skills, video taping, reflecting on students assessment, a 3-5 lesson Math learning segment with a central focus, procedural fluency and problem solving skills, as well as reflecting on students assessments and engaging them in a re-engagement lesson

• Teaching Math Grade 3 Module 4

• Teaching part of ELA Grade 3 Module 2A Unit 1

• Teaching Guided Reading Group - Making Inferences, Drawing Conclusion, Idioms

• Teaching Writers Workshop

• Collaborating with my cooperating teacher on essential modification and adaptations for struggling Math and ELA students

 

Self Contained Classroom: 7 Students with Severe Autism:

• ​Acquiring essential yet specific classroom management skills for the population I was working with, and being able to implement them in the classroom

• Learning each of my students individual strengths, needs, and learning styles and using these facts to differentiate lesson plans

• Learning how to plan and implement inquiry based experiement lessons

• Learning how to collaborate with paraprofessionals to run a productive and calm classroom environment

• Implementing students IEP goals into assessments that are conducted

• Gaining a firmer understanding and first hand experiences with the IEP maintainment and renewall process

• Teaching ELA Grade 1 Learning and Listening Strand: Human Body

• Teaching Experiental and Inquiry based lesson on the different essential systems of the Human Body using experiements

• Teaching Morning Circle

• Collaborating with Related Services Professionals on students individual needs

 

This role challenged every part of myself. Not only did it challenge who I thought I was a person, yet also what I believe in, and most importantly, what I believe to be ethical and fulfilling teaching practices and classroom practices.

 

How My Journaling and Focus Questions Reveal The Key Ways in Which I Differentiate, Manage the Classroom, as Well as Respect My Students

 

Not only was I responsible for my students and their learning every day, through lesson planning and assessment correcting,  yet this leadership role was also a very reflective one. Every day I would journal about my experiences of the day, and once a week I would write a Focus Question regarding an essential aspect of mainting a productive and thriving classroom. Some of these focus questions made me reflect on how:

 

• I translate knowledge, information, facts, questions, and concepts into engaging challenging lessons for my students. With this I focused on a Making Inferences Guided Reading Lesson that I taught my 3rd grade students students using an I, We, They format. In this lesson students used three modes of communication, oral communication, pictures, and written communication to practice making inferences.  The written communication was differentiated according to the students reading levels.

 

• I accommodate  for students differences in instructional planning.  With this question I reflected on an ELA lesson I taught my 3rd grade students using Bullfrog At Magnolia Circle, where the requisite skill that students were learning and then practicing was identifying. To differentiate my instructional planning I made sure to 1) Always have the learning objectives written on the board 2) Provide an overview of the page layout for the students before the lesson began 3) When students close read the focus section for the day struggling readers came to the back of the room to whisper read the text 4) When students were asked to identify fun facts on their graphic organizer stuggling students did not have to identify as many facts, giving them more time to close read 

 

• Support and respect every student in my classroom.  With this question I reflected on how I supported and respected the students in my classroom of seven students with severe autism. I supported and respected the students in my classroom by knowing and acknowledging my students unique personalities and learning differences. Knowing my students strengths and needs helped me cater to them as the individuals they are. 

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For access to components of my Teacher Portfolio, such as my:

• Management Statement

• Teaching Philosophy

• Peer Critique

• Parent Teacher Conference Narrative

• CSE Meeting Narrative

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Please use the contact page or links below to request.