Julia Cooperstein

Final Self-Reflection

Domain 1: Planning and Preparation

In this area I would give myself a score of basic. I feel as though there are many areas

within this domain where I can continue to grow and spend more time thinking about when

planning for my instruction. One area that I do feel particularly strong in under this domain is

demonstrates knowledge of students. Since August, I have gotten to know each one of my

students, including how they learn, their personalities, their interests, and more. When planning

for instruction I use this knowledge to the best of my ability in order to meet all of my learners. It

is important for teachers to understand their students on a deeper level than just their academic

abilities. I know what activities my students are involved in, who their friends are, what makes

them thrive and what makes them frustrated. I know which students are easily distracted and

offer for them to sit at the back table and complete their work. I know that many of my students

attention lags when they are just being talked at; therefore, I must plan something to engage

them. I believe that it would be very challenging to teach in a classroom where I didnt really

know my audience. In this regard, I am very lucky to have started off the year with my students.

Had I not been with them on the first day of school, it may have been more difficult for me to

truly get to know them before I dove right into teaching them.

In the other aspects of this domain, I feel that I have much room to grow. I often have

engaging ideas and activities for my students, but I do not always take into consideration the

scope and sequence of the fourth grade standards, particularly in English language arts. Since the

district does not currently have an ELA curriculum, that may be contributing to my inattention to

the scope and sequence of the standards. Following the curriculum in math has kept me on track
of what should be taught and when. Having a curriculum as a guide for ELA may be helpful in

keeping a teacher on track with the standards.

Often I feel as though I overestimate my students abilities and levels of knowledge. My

field experiences have always been in the primary grades, K-2. Adjusting to upper elementary

has been a challenge for me. At times I expect my fourth graders to know things that they do not

know or do things where they are not there developmentally. For example, I assumed that they

were well versed in word processing when publishing their writing pieces. I would get frustrated

at simple things such as: not knowing how to put the title in the center of the page, not knowing

where a paragraph goes, etc. I was assuming that because they were so much older than the

placements where I have been in previously that they had already learned these things. When

things like this happen, I become frustrated but then realize that what I had been expecting of

them were middle school and high school level skills. I realized that I cannot just give an

assignment and not explain it explicitly, or say something abstract without breaking down the

meaning. Even though they are in the upper elementary grades, they still need explicit instruction

in order to learn. I believe that this has been one of my biggest challenges within this domain and

it is something that I am continuing to work on.

Domain 2: Classroom Environment

I feel as though I am proficient in the domain of classroom environment. Since the first

day of school, my students have viewed me as a second teacher in the room, not just a helper.

While I maintain my professional boundaries, I also make sure that I allow my students to view

me as a person just like them. I share with them my feelings, my frustrations and my successes

so that they then feel comfortable sharing theirs with me. Because of this, they have come to

trust me and also trust that my input and feedback is valuable. This also stems from getting to
know them as individuals. I have shown them that I care about them as people, not just as

students in my classroom. After meeting your students, it is crucial to break this barrier of

student vs. individual as soon as possible. For some students, it takes a long time for them to

warm up to a new person in their daily lives. There is one student in my class in particular who I

thought I would never be able to build a relationship with. For weeks and even months, this

student never asked me for help, he never even said my name, so I was sure he did not even

know what it was. His behavior was an issue and I felt a tension building with him. If he would

do something inappropriate I would just look at him and he would know he was doing something

wrong. I felt that his behavior and my frustration with his behavior was impeding on my ability

to build a relationship with him. Some new systems have been put in place for this students

behavior and since then I have felt that the barrier and tension have slowly been breaking. This

student took longer to trust me and have faith that I cared about him as an individual and that I

was not just there to combat his negative behaviors. Finally, he has started asking me questions

about his work and just about things in general such as, Did you watch the Eagles game last

night? Did you see them do the electric slide? He has begun to work at the back table where I

often sit to move himself away from distractions and ask me for help. This success with this one

student who I was sure I would never get through to has assured me that I demonstrate respect

and acceptance of all of my students and that while I maintain professional boundaries, I also

show that I am a person that cares about them.

Being able to motivate my students stems from my relationships that I have built with

them. I feel that they have learned that I will not say something unless I truly mean it. When I tell

them that they are capable of succeeding and that they can persevere through a difficult task,

they trust my confidence in them. With the students who struggle most in my class, I often
celebrate small successes with them. This shows that I am confident in their abilities and makes

them proud and motivated to keep persevering. For example, a student was working at the back

table on a math test that was particularly challenging for her. On a division problem, she

struggled and kept asking me for help. I helped her through it and when she did a step correctly I

showed her my excitement and how proud I was. Another student has difficulty elaborating on

his ideas and adding detail to any of his writing, whether it is full writing piece or just a simple

reading response question. I graded one activity where the students were to find a character trait

to describe the main character in Frindle and cite and analyze evidence to support the trait, this

is exactly the kind of task he struggles with. I couldnt help but smile when I saw his response.

He did exactly what they question asked and persevered in what I know was a challenging task

for him. I made sure that I shared my feelings with him when I saw him next, which happened to

be at his student-led conference. I told him that I how proud I was of the work that he had done. I

acknowledged his difficulty by telling him I knew that this was not an easy task for him, but then

explained to him that the response he gave is exactly what we were looking for. I am grateful

that my students have come to trust and value my opinion and my feedback as a regular teacher.

I feel as though showing my students my feelings and my confidence in them truly motivates

them to do their best.

Domain 3: Instruction

In the area of instruction, I would rate myself at proficient. I believe that I know my

students well as learners and am able to appropriately meet their needs in both small group and

whole group instruction. Since the beginning of the semester, I have been working with small

groups in both math workshop and readers workshop. I feel as though I have learned to

effectively differentiate my instruction for each of my groups. In math workshop, I work with
our highest level group and a grade level group. My instruction looks very different in both of

these groups. For example, my highest group does not require as much modeling of content.

Though it took some trial and error and also some discomfort on my end, I have learned that my

time with them can consist of mostly guided and independent practice.

Reflection is embedded into my practice daily. After each time I teach something I have

taken time to think about what happened, what I did well and what I could do better. I use this

information to evaluate my own performance and my students performance. I then use this to

inform my instruction in future lessons. My mentor teacher and I frequently debrief after

workshops since we are each doing different things and seeing different groups of students. We

are easily able to tell if our students are not understanding a topic and decide together how to

change our instruction for the next time. Reflection is an important practice to engage in after

each lesson. Without reflection, students fall behind and their needs are not being met within the

classroom.

For the most part, I believe that I communicate my instruction/directions/expectations

effectively. When I am teaching, I make sure to clearly state my directions before moving on to

independent practice so that there are not as many questions about what they should be doing.

Since most of the students are able to complete the task with little to no questions, I feel as

though communicate effectively. On the other hand, there are many questions from students who

are frequently distracted or talking while directions are being given. This is a reflection that my

management techniques may not be working for some students.

The area I believe I could improve in most in this domain is engaging students in all

aspects of learning. My mentor teacher and I frequently find that students are disengaged and

talking when they are supposed to be listening. We have both been working on incorporating
more total participation techniques such as turn and talk, thumbs up/thumbs down, etc. In my

small groups, I find that I lose students attention frequently and then they become completely

disengaged in the content. The management aspect of teaching has been my biggest challenge

thus far. Going into student teaching, I will try to incorporate more total participation techniques

into my groups. I will also make sure to plan questions or extension for students who finish

something early and are waiting on other students in the group. Planning these things will

eliminate the time that students have to become disengaged.

Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities

In this area I would rate myself proficient. I believe that I show professionalism in all

aspects of my teaching. As mentioned above, I frequently reflect on my instruction in order to

become a better teacher. I also participate in the professional community in the school by

attending PLC meetings, planning meetings and professional development opportunities. From

these experiences, I have learned how teachers collaborate and work effectively as a team. I have

learned valuable information in professional development opportunities that both the district and

school provide. I am very lucky to be have been able to participate in these experiences this

semester and to be able to continue them as I begin to move into student teaching.

Aside from professional experiences, I also participate in other things around the school

to become involved in the community. I have begun to volunteer in the after school art club run

by the art teacher and plan to do so throughout next semester. This allows me to work with staff

members other than my mentor teacher and my grade level team. It also allows me to work with

different ages other than fourth grade. While this club is not academic-related, there are students

ranging from Kindergarten through fifth grade that I am working with. Helping a Kindergartener

looks very different from helping a fifth grader, it has helped me learn how to be flexible and
quickly adapt. I also plan on starting a new club next semester that has a focus on mindfulness.

This is something that I am passionate about and want to bring to my school. Research shows the

profound impacts that practicing mindfulness can have on students. I want to introduce and

practice this with students so that they are able to engage in mindful practices as they move

through school. These non-academic experiences are also helping shape the teacher I am

becoming by allowing me to work with many students and different content than I am used to in

the classroom.

Goals:

The experience I have had this semester has taught me many things about teaching and

about myself as a teacher. I am grateful to have had so much time in the classroom already

before moving into student teaching. From this experience and my reflective practice, there are a

few areas that I would like to focus on improving in the upcoming semester.

In domain one, planning and preparation, I feel as though I need to improve in knowledge

of the standards. As mentioned previously, I am able to generate creative activities and lessons

for my students. But, I do not always take into consideration the standards that my students

should be meeting at that point in the year. During student teaching I will be more cognizant

about the scope and sequence of the 4th grade standards. I have printed out the ELA and

Mathematics standards to refer to. But in addition to that, I need to have a copy of the scope and

sequence. With these two documents, I will be able to see which standards my students have

already met and which should be worked on at each point in the year.

A goal that combines domains two and three is to improve upon my management

techniques. In domain three, instruction, I feel as though my students are frequently disengaged.

From reflection on my own teaching, I have come to realize that my students become disengaged
when they have finished working on something and have nothing else to work on or are waiting

for the next direction. When this happens, I feel unable to manage their behavior and refocus

them back to the content. Often times, even though I have planned for a whole lesson, I only

accomplish a small piece because I am spending a lot of my time trying to manage behaviors. In

order to improve upon this, as mentioned previously, I will be sure to plan questions or extension

activities when students finish work so that there is not time to be disengaged. I will always be

one step ahead of where they are so that as soon as they finish they can work on/think about

something new. When students are constantly engaged in something and not waiting for others to

finish or answer questions, there will not be time for them to become distracted and begin to talk

to others. It is my hope that being one step ahead in activities will cut down management issues

that arise.

Finally, in domain four: professional responsibilities, I would like to become more

comfortable with asking for feedback from my mentor teacher. While we reflect together

frequently on our students, I feel as though I do not ask for enough feedback on my own

teaching. This happens because most of my teaching this semester has occurred in small groups.

My mentor teacher and I both see small groups at the same time, so she has not had much time to

watch my teaching. Next semester as I am teaching whole group more frequently, I plan to ask

for feedback more on my teaching. In addition to whole group instruction, I would like to receive

feedback on my small group instruction, as well. In order for my mentor teacher to provide me

with feedback on my small group instruction, I could video or audio record myself teaching and

we could discuss the recording together.

As I am still a pre-service teacher, there are many areas in which I can improve. I believe

that the goals I have chosen for myself as I move into student teaching are reasonable and
appropriate for me at this point in time. I have already had so much time to reflect on a tweak my

teaching practice. The goals that I have for myself at this point in time more than likely look very

different from goals of pre-service teachers just entering the classroom for student teaching. I

feel that growing in these aspects of my teaching will bode well for me in my future teaching

career.