Professional+Portfolio+Reflections

Tatum, I will make my comments in your material in red - if I can figure out how to keep the type red through!

Cyril's lecture on "The Professional Development Process" introduced new ideas, reviewed concepts learned in EPS 200, and portrayed familiar knowledge in a new light. While I have engaged with concepts such as preconference, target, data collection, post-conference, and reflection in both theory and practice, the schema “pedagogical content knowledge”, to which these items are attributed, was new to me. The acronym “ABCD”, for developing evaluation techniques for the students’ mastery of content, was another concept that Cyril introduced to me. I found the alphabetized list of audience, behavior, condition, and degree was particularly useful to differentiate between outcome and evaluation. Last semester, I created a ten-week unit plan for ELA B30 in my ELNG 300 course. While developing our unit plans, my classmates and I were encouraged to create our own outcomes in addition to using some provided by the curriculum. However, the mark I received on my unit plan was hindered by the outcomes I had created as they were methods of assessment not goals for student learning. Cyril’s acronym has helped me identify the differences between these two items and the importance of understanding of how they are not interchangeable entities. Remember that assessment is the measurement and valuing of the behaviour. Before the teacher can create the condition, or the medium of assessment, the teacher must first determine what the behavior will be. In keeping with Cyril’s example of finding instances of imagery within a poem, I used to think that an appropriate outcome was “students will find instances of imagery within the selected poem”. Now I realize that such a statement only addresses //what// the students are to do and not //how// they are to do it. After Cyril’s discussion, I believe that a more thoughtful outcome would be, “students will show their understanding of imagery by identifying the words that heighten one or more of their five senses”.
 * Week of January 17, 2011 **

Another “light-bulb” moment that occurred during Cyril’s discussion was his explanation of the purpose of “development” in lesson planning. He indicated that we must refocus our attention from our performance as teachers to students’ acquisition. Recalling on my post-conferencing experiences of EPS 200, almost all of my reflection was concerned with the presentation of my lesson, and little made to the learning acquisition of students. I may give an eloquent, sophisticated lecture on the purpose of soliloquy in Shakespeare’s plays, but if my teaching does not lead to student learning, I am wasting my breath. Cyril’s blunt example “would you show a film to students who are blind?” serves as a reminder to the importance of viewing development as the time of student learning. There is a time to focus on teacher behaviour - if only to ensure that the behaviour is controlled and understood by the teacher - but the focus of classroom instruction is to increase the probability that the student will in fact learn something during that lesson. **Week of January 24, 2011 ** In the Faculty of Education, professors are constantly reminding students to consult professional resources to support one’s professional development. Education professors indicate that the consultation of professional resources should not only be practiced by pre-service teachers, but by educators working in the field. The ELNG 351 course syllabus provided by Valerie, for example, asks students to record the professional resources accessed during our time at Balfour in our reflective teaching journals. While their advice is perfectly logical, I was previously uncertain as to whether I would have the insight, the outlets, and the time to explore professional resources without the aid of an expert such as an Education professor. Where would I find such articles and how would I have time to read them in addition to the heavy workload of a “green” teacher? How would I know which resources are more applicable to the pedagogical context in which I am teaching? Finally, should I be making further reflection concerning the professional resources to enhance my professional development? This week, I was able to answer my own questions while thumbing through an //Educational Leadership// journal that was on the coffee table in the Balfour Collegiate staff room. I was so concerned with fulfilling my professors’ requests to seek professional resources that I failed to recognize the purpose of professional development—to improve my //individual// teaching practice. My experiences in grade 10 Advisory and in the EAL literacy classroom have reminded me that I will not always have my professors to hold my hand to monitor my performance. Moreover, no one knows me better than I know myself and it is ultimately my responsibility to evaluate my strengths and opportunities for improvement. But you are also an intelligent, thoughtful person who will ask herself as she read or investigates a resource - is this good? how can I use this? does it explain anything to me? Has it brought something new to me? etc. As I skimmed through //Educational Leadership//, the article, “How PowerPoint is Killing Education” by Mark Seeks caught my attention. The article explained that PowerPoint limits students to thinking linearly and discourages them from asking questions that do not pertain to the bulleted information on the slides. The article explains that PowerPoint presentations eliminates nearly all student interaction as they are too preoccupied copying the information the teacher is reading off of the slides “ bypasing the minds of both" as Cyril would say. As I completed the article with the five minutes left in the lunch hour I realized that I was engaging with professional resources without being aware of it. By reading selectively (choosing to skim through the paragraph targeted at educators born before the Information Age) I was deciding what aspects of the article was relevant to my professional development. From this experience I learned that engaging with professional resources is not a science, but an art unique to each educator. **Week of January 31, 2011 ** My dad always says, “If you take care of the little things in life, the big things will take care of themselves”. I believe that his words ring true in the art of teaching as well. Activity transitions and usefulness of space are two major entities of classroom management. A thoughtful, purposeful lesson plan can be hampered by poor use of time and space. Cyril used “teachable moments” to show us how tasks as simple as handing out papers can delay a whole lesson from being taught. It seems that poorly organized “housekeeping items”, as university professors often describe them, can set the pace for the whole lesson. As Cyril stressed the importance of developing classroom routines, I was reminded of a teacher I had in middle years. When Mrs. Richardson began teaching a new group of students she meticulously taught her students the routines of her classroom. While her 20-minute lesson of how to hand out/hand in papers seemed unnecessary for grade nine students, it proved to pay-off in the end. Mrs. R, as we called her, would simply place the papers she wished to hand out to the class on the desk situated in the front-left corner of the classroom. The student in that desk would take enough copies for the students in the row behind him/her, and then pass the rest of the pile to the student sitting to the right of him/her. This passing-routine would continue until the student in the back-left corner of the classroom received his/her paper. Similarly, if Mrs. R asked for papers to be handed-in, the students would proceed with the inverse of the routine described above. Although there was some confusion at the beginning of the school-year, students quickly got the hang of the hand-in procedure and her routine proved to be more efficient than those of other teachers in the school. Conscious decisions such as Mrs. R’s hand-in routine or the position of cooperative groups within the classroom have connections to the behavioural systems family of psychology. Although the correlation between Pavlov’s salivating dogs and high school students may be weak, I believe that students will be much more prepared for the task of learning if they immersed in an environment of established routines. I believe that if the little aspects of classroom management executed in an organized, thoughtful manner, the grand schemes of learning can be more easily facilitated. Everyone likes structure and guidelines-especially in situations that are fluid. **<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">Week of February 7, 2011 **The power of experiential learning was visibly shown in the film //The Wave.// Based on a true story, the film tells the story of Mr. Ross’ history class and how they came to understand how the German population was influenced by the Nazi regime. While watching the film, Cyril asked us to consider the relationship between the teacher and the students and why their relationship fostered the implementation of the Nazi ideology into the classroom. As I watched the film I felt that it was a little bit far-fetched in how quickly the students conformed to Mr. Ross’ militaristic commands. After discussing the film with my class, however, I changed my opinion. Mr. Ross, or Ron Jones’ enthusiasm captivated the attention of the students. The film illustrated that he was an expert in the subject matter, and the students showed appreciation of that. Thirdly, and arguably most importantly, the teacher was committed to his actions. If Mr. Ross was to enter the classroom on the second day and retract his militaristic authority the students would not have been convinced if he was to continue the experiment another day. The trusting and accepting relationship that Mr. Ross quickly developed with the students illustrated how the German citizens were entranced by the Nazi regime. Although Mr. Ross was firm in his actions, he was not punitive towards the students. Even when the students had learned of Mr. Ross’ intentions, he did not embarrass them for their emotional responses. In our class discussion of the film, the question, “how far is too far?” came to mind. While Mr. Ross seemed to have control of his actions, another teacher, whether they are veteran or a rookie in the educational field, might have led the experiment in a very dangerous direction. Should educators have discretion as to which subject matter is suitable to teach experimentally, or should teachers assume that all content can be understood through experimental instruction? Should parents be consulted prior to an experiment like this or should the teacher attempt to make the situation as genuine as possible? Cyril helped me to realize that there are no straightforward answers to these questions and that it is largely dependent on the context, a critical commonplace of learning. I know, that as a pre-service teacher, I would not be equipped to implement an experimental instruction such as “The Wave”; however, my attitude might vary in a different time and setting.

**<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">﻿Week of February 14, 2011 **<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">As the old saying goes, the early bird gets the worm. In my situation, I was also the confused bird as I thought Cyril wanted us to have our //Teach like a Champion// technique lesson plans prepared for last Wednesday, and I had my lesson on “Pepper” prepared a week in advance. My unintended promptness gave me the opportunity to pre-conference my lesson plan with Cyril during class, as an example for me and my peers. Although I was apprehensive about pre-conferencing in front of my classmates and I was blushing from ear to ear, I found it very beneficial and valuable for my professional development. I found that as Cyril and I discussed the progression of my lesson, a pattern developed in Cyril’s questioning: How will you explain the baseball warm-up game of Pepper? How many attributes of the Pepper technique will you teach to the class? How will you organize these attributes into broader concepts? How will you recall these attributes in the closure of your lesson? (He suggested writing these points on the board at the beginning of the lesson.) The repetition of “How” questions led me to the understanding that my lesson plan was not practical enough to be considered a “drop-dead lesson”. Although I realize preparing a “drop-dead lesson” for every class of my teaching career is a very unrealistic expectation, I understand the importance of considering the lay-out of my notes on the whiteboard, or the spatial organization of the reciprocal teaching groups, for example, as a pre-service educator to master the performance skills of teaching. The comment Cyril made about the exclusion of judgment-based questions for data collection was another light-bulb moment during my pre-conference. In EPS 200, Julie and Gerry (seminar and lab instructors) helped us to develop many professional development targets on questioning, monitoring classroom management, assessment, and pedagogical performance. In EPE 100 and 300 we implemented the Physical Education focused-target, “Academic Learning Time-PE”, which is a form of data collection that records how much time students are engaged in physical activity. While we spent much time creating and pre-conferencing these targets, we did not constructively reflect on the outcome of the data collection for future considerations. My discussion with Cyril helped me to realize that a professional development target is ineffective if it is not followed by meaningful reflection. My Pepper lesson plan was accompanied by a questioning target to ensure that I evenly distribute my questions to all students and that I allow students appropriate wait time before I answer the question or another student answers the question. After my pre-conference with Cyril I realize that if I am to truly improve in student-questioning, I must be proactive with the data-collection that my cooperating teacher/partner provides. Whether it requires me to create subsequent questioning-targets or additional reflection in my teaching practices, it is my professional responsibility to consistently improve in the performance of pedagogy.

. .  //**READING WEEK, NO ENTRY**// <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify;">**<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">Week of February 28, 2011 ** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify;">In a morning that brusquely began with a classroom full of tired university students, grieving over the end of Reading Week, and a partially-ill professor, I surprisingly cultivated much critical thought towards the teacher’s delivery of a lesson. Class commenced with a pre-conference discussion between Cyril and Jeff. As Cyril guided the pre-conference, he settled into the instructional strategy of teaching through questioning, an approach that Cyril has often employed in our EPS 350 classes. He has purposefully modeled this instructional strategy to indicate the practical aspects that need to be considered while teaching a lesson. His questioning strategy also models how one should conduct a pre/post-conference. While Cyril’s tactic has repeatedly proven to be an effective tool for learning, the process can be intimidating when you are the subject of such questioning. While I fully understand that it is not Cyril’s intention to ridicule or intimidate, but rather aim for concept attainment amongst students, I am unsure whether I have “gumption” to execute this questioning tactic as successfully as Cyril can. (Gumption is defined as one with courage, bravery, common sense, initiative, or resourcefulness. I use “gumption” with every sense of the word in mind). I am tentative about whether a group of high school students would accept this learning strategy from a young, female teacher as readily as my university classmates received it from Cyril. It is my hope that with time and practice, I will be able to employ the questioning strategy with automaticity and assertiveness, as I believe this “hard and fast” tool for concept attainment has a well-deserved place in the classroom. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We have to adjust our instructional approach to accommodate both our own style and the needs and nature of our students. You have only seen me work with University level students and with carefully chosen students - I think I worked with you in a manner that was subtly different than the work I did with Jeff as I tried to take into account each of your styles and approaches. No one's approach translates exactly from one group of students to the next nor from one age of students to the next. You will develop an approach that initially feels comfortable to you and if you work at it that approach will shift and change along with the shifting and changing students whom you work with. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify;">Another theme Cyril brought to our attention was the use of meditation and visualization as performance exercises prior to the delivery of a lesson. Cyril’s sustained analogy that compares teaching to an acting performance has helped me to identify the entertainment quality I have came to thoroughly value in educators. Like athletes, comedians, actors, and singers, teachers need to prepare and warm-up for their performances. Cyril described a visualization activity in which the performer takes two minutes of solitude to close her eyes and imagine a neon-lighted sign that flashes “ONE” with each inhale/exhale. I am certain this technique will be useful to “push-out” any irrelevant thoughts and gain focus on a single item. Cyril explained that this technique will help to calm one’s nerves without completely getting rid of the nerves that grant you the energy and the edge needed for the performance. Like many aspects of the “Professional Development Process”, I must make an explicit and habitual effort to visualize or meditate prior to teaching a lesson, so it is an established teaching practice once I have my own classroom. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is very good - I'll look forward to reading more of this - Cyril
 * Week of February 21, 2011**

**<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">Week of March 7, 2011 ** **<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">My Definition of an Excellent Teacher (Prior to Pre-Internship) ** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; text-align: justify;">An apathetic and ignorant approach to the task of describing the knowledge, skills, and abilities of an excellent teacher would consist of listing qualities that you already possess so the professional development required to aspire to the persona of an excellent teacher is minimal. However, I am far too invested in the pedagogical profession and much too informed on an educator’s influence on children to take the easy road now. I do not believe that “excellence” can or should ever be fully achieved, as it implies that there are no aspects in which one can strive for improvement. Moreover, educators must not be stagnant in their efforts to enhance their teaching practice. During class, Cyril encouraged us to brainstorm a list of attitudes and areas of knowledge that comprise an excellent teacher. I believe that an exemplary teacher much balance qualities of patience, energy, passion, with-it-ness, innovation, firmness and consistency, and open-mindness. Admirable educators must also have knowledge of the content/curriculum, self, multiple intelligences, context, student interests, exceptionalities and limitations, and knowledge of how they define success. Throughout my three-week block I intend to work on maintaining consistency in my teaching practices. A naïve but realistic fear of mine is that the students will not respect me. I worry that I will yield to uphold classroom discipline policies out of concern that the students will view me as unkind and insensitive. Once I arrive at Campbell Collegiate, I will inquire my cooperating teacher as to how he deals with unpermitted cell phone use, instances of disrespect, unexcused absences, late assignments, etc. After all, I am a guest in another teacher’s classroom and I must adhere to the teacher’s expectations of the students and of myself. Moreover, I must remember that children are not ignorant to the nature of discipline and the need for order in the school environment. If educators treat discipline in a professional matter, students will typically understand that the intent of punishment is not lower the confidence of students, but to serve as a motive to correct inappropriate behavior. I believe that I have an aptitude and passion for developing creative lessons; however, I must be able to manage this creative and passionate energy to ensure that thoughtful learning will occur. For example, I created a lesson to teach students the skills to cultivate the imagery within literature for my grade 10 advisory class at Balfour Collegiate. To cultivate words, feelings, and memories, I provided students with chewing gum to stimulate their sense of taste, a lullaby to stimulate their auditory senses, a post card to enhance the sense of sight, and a container of coffee grounds to enhance the sense of smell. While students enjoyed moving around the classroom and interacting with the stimuli, I wonder whether students would have a greater understanding of imagery if it was taught through a different approach. Throughout my three-week block I will consistently consult my cooperating teacher Mr. Ryan Hall and my faculty advisor Mr. Doug Hindle to refine my creative lesson ideas so I am able to foster optimal learning experiences. **<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Week of March 21, 2011 **<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Mr. Hall teaches four english language arts classes in the second semester of school. During the first period, Mr. Hall teaches fourteen ELA 20 students. They are a quiet but on-task group of students, most of who attend on a consistent basis. Mr. Hall has also been assigned to a group of respectful, talented, and intelligent grade nine students to be his homeroom class. Mr. Hall does not typically teach lessons for this fifteen minute advisory period; however, he usually provides them with riddles, trivia questions, or short video clips on the projector screen. Mr. Hall teaches another ELA 20 class during second period. This class is comprised of 30 students, who display great engagement with instruction and material. Madeline and Nishant are two students who are particularly responsive to the material and their obvious interest and intelligence motivates their peers to participate in class discussions as well. Third period has been allotted as Mr. Hall’s preparation period. Mr. Hall typically spends this time in his classroom marking and preparing lessons. After lunch, Mr. Hall teaches ELA A10 in fourth period. The students in his grade ten class are well-mannered, engaged, and academically-motivated. The first lesson I taught during my pre-internship introduced persuasive essay writing to the grade ten students. Although my lesson was implemented with few problems, the students would have been supportive even if I had failed horribly. The fourteen grade ten students consistently greet me with a smile and it feels that they are really rooting for me to do well. Mr. Hall teaches ELA 9 in the last period of the day. These students are enrolled in the French emersion program at Campbell collegiate and english language arts, their final class of the day, is their only in-class opportunity to speak English. Needless to say, they have a tendency to be a bit chatty. However, they show respect to Mr. Hall, Miss Lueken and me and behave accordingly once being told be quiet.

**<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Week of March 28, 2011 **<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">As I walked out of the doors of Campbell Collegiate on Thursday afternoon, amidst all the students waiting to be picked up, I thought to myself, “I can’t believe that I am going to get paid to do this someday.” My experience at Campbell Collegiate can be described as a time of growth and a time of enjoyment. In turn, I believe that my cooperating teacher has been the greatest facilitator of my growth and enjoyment. Mr. Ryan Hall has taught english language arts for twenty-one years. He obtained his Education degree at the University of Regina in addition to playing with the Regina Rams football club. After convocation, Mr. Hall returned to the high school from which he graduated and taught at Caronport High School for 17 years. In the fall of 2007, Mr. Hall and his family moved to Regina and he obtained a position teaching english language arts at Campbell Collegiate. The first thing I noticed upon entering Mr. Hall’s classroom was the Chicago Bears/Shakespeare decoration motif, accented with pictures of his family. As a teacher who values family, sports, and literature, I knew that Mr. Hall was an individual that I would be able to relate to. While Mr. Hall and I have had many conversations concerning football, hockey, his children, and his experience attending university with “Mother Val”, his kind, agreeable, and supportive nature most greatly contributes to the collegial relationship he and I have developed throughout my pre-internship experience. Moreover, working with Ryan has been my first opportunity in the classroom with a male teacher. The biggest gender difference that I have noticed in my (limited) experience of working with cooperating teachers is the regulation of emotion. Mr. Hall embraces each student and situation with the same calm, easy-going tone of voice, which is something the students have come to appreciate. Whether he is speaking to a student about a remarkable grade he/she received or talking to a student about the consequences of in-class cell-phone use, Mr. Hall projects tranquility in his voice. I think women, on the other hand, have a natural tendency to speak more enthusiastically about positive items and reveal their disappointment or disgust toward negative items more obviously. Working simultaneously (and extensively) with Val and Cyril this semester, I have noticed this gender difference as well. If I was to make an intelligent comment in a class discussion, Val would be inclined to shoot her arms up in the air and shout, “Yes!” In the same situation, however, Cyril would simply smile and nod. Just as I believe Val’s and Cyril’s personalities complement each other, I believe female and male teachers complement each other in the academic environment.

**<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">Week of April 4, 2011 ****<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">My Definition of an Excellent Teacher (After Pre-Internship) **<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">When Cyril asked my classmates and me to describe and reflect on our idea of an excellent teacher at the beginning of March, I gave extreme value to the qualities of creativity and originality. I believed that an admirable teacher always kept the students “on their toes” and always wondering what her next instructional “move” will be. Moreover, my perception of student-engagement had a strong physical connotation. Prior to my pre-internship experience, I visualized engaged students to be sitting at the end of their seats wide-eyed and smiling as I communicated brilliance in the front of the room. Needless to say, my naivety was evident during my first days at Campbell Collegiate. I gauged by teaching ability by the energy level of the grade eleven students who sat sluggishly in their desks at 8:30 a.m. However, my definition of engagement was altered once the students submitted their first exit-slip journal response that Miss Lueken and I read. Students proved to be much more comfortable sharing their observations about literature through expressive writing rather than through large-group oral discussions. What Miss Lueken and I considered to be signs of disengagement was simply the quiet, reserved nature of the students. While I still value creative and innovative qualities in a teacher, I do not believe these are the only precursors to student engagement. Mr. Hall, my cooperating teacher, has shown student engagement can transpire in response to a passive, routine style of instruction. On our second observation day, for instance, he assigned the students to read the short story “A Doll’s House” silently and independently during class. The reading assignment was followed by a series of short-answer comprehension questions; the students then responded to these questions in their notebooks. Finally, Mr. Hall the last 15 minutes of class discussing these comprehensions questions as a large group. The students were remarkably quiet during the whole hour of class and I know that if my Business Ed. and English classmates were given the same assignment we would have been much more disorderly than the grade eleven students were. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">I also believe that an excellent teacher possesses the skill of pacing. While I think that the teacher’s physical pacing across the front of the room is necessary to make visual contact with all students and maintain a sufficient level of energy in the classroom, I am referring to the cognitive realm of pacing, and the rate in which students attain concepts. I feel that I have a strong capacity to “read”, understand, and relate to other individuals—a likely a reason I chose to be in the field of Education. Moreover, I believe that I am quite aware of the cognitive abilities and personal issues that surround adolescent students. However, after teaching my first lessons at Campbell, I realized how much I have academically grown in the four years that I have been away from high school. If a university professor asks me to compose a paragraph reflecting on my beliefs and values, I need only a minute or two to think about my response before I begin writing. ELA 20 students, however, may need a half an hour to compose the same response. When Miss (Jessica) Lueken and I planned our lesson on the credos (a genre of writing that describes your personal goals, values, and beliefs) we had attributed two periods to discussing three sample credos before providing the students with the personal credo assignment and allowing them class-time to work on their own statements of beliefs. Needless to say, Miss Lueken and I were still in “university mode” as Mr. Hall reminded us the importance of allowing considerable time for students to be exposed to multiple sample texts and ample time for students to attain the concept of how to decode and replicate the credo genre of writing. What Miss Lueken and I originally perceived would be taught in three periods was actually taught in five. As I had previously implied, I believe that pacing is not a quality that is possessed naturally by an educator but rather it is a skill that takes time, practice, and patience to acquire. In merely three weeks at Campbell Collegiate I gained a much greater understanding of the rate of which students should be expected to attain concepts and I know that I will have plenty of opportunities to acquire the skill of pacing during my internship experience next fall. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Returning to my list of qualities held by an exemplary teacher that I created on March 7, 2011, many of my perceptions have remained the same. I believe that the quality of “with-it-ness” is essential for all teachers to have. Whether it means being aware of in-class cell phone use and incomplete homework assignments or being responsive to signs of depression, malnourishment, and domestic abuse, a teacher must be attuned to the needs of each student. I still hold value in applying consistency in instruction, assessment, and disciplinary practices. Students must have a firm understanding of your philosophy of education so they know what to aspire to. While at Campbell, Miss Lueken and I had the opportunity to mark grade ten persuasive-writing essays. I found it difficult to assess all students objectively. I was inclined to mark more generously towards the students who eagerly participated in class. I also found myself comparing the mark I had given them to their overall course average to see whether I was consistent with Mr. Hall’s evaluations. (In addition, I did not realize how long it took to mark a single essay, let alone a whole class’ worth!) Lastly, I still believe an exemplary teacher needs to be passionate about her profession and her students. Cyril made note of the performance aspects of teaching many times throughout the semester. He stressed the importance of “selling” the material, instructional method, and form of assessment to yourself before you can expect the students to “buy-in” to your performance. An excellent educator must consistently reflect on and refine their practice to ensure what they are teaching is worthy as we are not just “selling” concepts and material but we are advertising for the entire institute of education. The impression adolescents have of learning during high school often determines their view of education for the rest of their lives. As teachers, we are given the noble responsibility of inspiring children to become life-long learners with the desire to succeed.

<span style="color: #ff0000; display: block; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Thanks for this - Cyril