Happy 2014!
It's hard to believe I'm half way through the year. My time in 5th grade is over... for now. Tomorrow I start in kindergarten at a whole new school.
Over vacation I worked on writing assessments of my understandings of four of the ten competencies for UVEI. I chose to do Learner Development, Learning Environments, Content Knowledge, and Planning for Instruction. Most were straightforward enough, but the Content Knowledge was challenging for me. The assessments ask what I believed about the competency before starting the program, what I learned during the program and during my placement that supported or changed my beliefs, what evidence to I have to support my beliefs, and what are my plans for my next placement. Challenging questions, especially if you don't have strong beliefs in an area. However, I got them done and my faculty coach deemed me competent in each one. That was good to hear!
This upcoming week I'll be at UVEI, learning about unit design. My new mentor teacher suggested I plan a social studies unit on "people in the neighborhood." I'll have to check the relevant Common Core standards, which I'm sure will be an early step in the unit design at UVEI. I think it will be a fun topic and I've already found lots of inspiration on Pinterest! Reminding myself that the lesson goal has to come first, before the fun.
One of the biggest challenges in writing my assessments is trying to find expert quotes. I've read tons of books, articles, and blogs, but to be able to recall and find relevant quotes is difficult. Also, many of the books I've read have been library books, or books I owned but have since passed along. I have to write six more assessments by the end of the school year, so maybe I can come up with a system or something to make it easier the next time around.
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