Domain IV

Facilitating Improvements in Instruction and Student Learning

Instruction is the heart of all learning. How teachers structure their classrooms and the strategies and methods they use to teach all impact student learning for the year. Teachers can play a large role in shaping their schools' instruction, especially when in roles such as team leader, coach, or mentor. Keeping up to date on instructional strategies and engaging in dialog with colleagues about improvements based on assessment, student work, and observation is critical for improvement in student learning.

Artifact 1

Improving instruction requires teachers to be reflective and honest about their current instructional strategies. Coaching cycles are a valuable way for teachers to improve their instruction through review and improvement. Additionally, coaching cycles require teachers to be vulnerable and require coaches to build trust, ask quality questions, and utilize their listening skills to paraphrase and synthesize teachers’ reflections. During my coaching internship project, I read the work of Jim Knight, Elena Aguilar, Diane Sweeny, Arthur Costa, and Robert Garmston. A common belief highlighted in some of these works is that teachers have the knowledge and capability to improve their teaching with guidance, questioning, and support from a coach. During my practice coaching cycle, I gathered questions and sentence stems from the various resources I had read about coaching and utilized them during my first coaching conversation with the teacher. After the conversation, I asked the teacher to fill out a feedback form to get an idea of how well I questioned and listened to the teacher, as well as how comfortable I made them feel during the conversation. The feedback I received was positive, and additionally, I got feedback from the teacher about including follow-up email summaries that I was able to incorporate moving forward. I enjoyed stretching my listening, paraphrasing, and questioning skills while helping the teacher identify an area of their teaching instruction that they wanted to improve upon.

Cognitive Coaching Questions Open Ended.pdf
Pre-Conference Feedback Form - Google Forms.pdf
colors korean english.pdf

Artifact 2

I aim to incorporate more translanguaging strategies into my classroom after learning about the benefits of it through research. In my music classes, I have incorporated strategies in my instruction that encourage bilingual students to access their various language knowledge. In my early years classes, this looks like simple activities such as counting in various languages and replacing simple words in songs with their second language. For example, when we sing our ‘Apple Tree’ song, sometimes we sing the word ‘apple’ in English, and sometimes we sing the word ‘apple’ in Korean (사과). Since encouraging students to access their non-English languages in my music class, I have noticed that students have started to offer their language knowledge without my prompting. Additionally, this strategy does not require me to hold the language knowledge. While I know a little polite Korean, my students often teach me and share new words with me. They also access other languages that they know, such as Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and French. In my upper years classes, I allow and encourage students to use their home language when writing non-assessment work. For example, during our hip-hop unit, I do not assess the quality of their lyrics but instead assess the structure of their song and how they use the lyrics to create musical structure; therefore, I allow students to write in their home language. Outside of my classroom, I have encouraged other teachers through conversation to utilize these types of strategies as well as introduce them to technology tools that can aid their bilingual students. One tool that I advocated for access to and shared with my specialist team is Widget. This website allows teachers to make flashcards with simple pictures and provides translation services. This website has helped many of our students bridge the gap in their bilingual skills. It has also helped teachers to create visuals and provide translations for students that support their content learning quickly and easily.

Garmston, R. (2008, Spring), Collaborative Culture: Raise the level of conversation by using paraphrasing as a listening skill. Journal of Staff Development, Volume 29 (2), 53-54Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium. (2011). Teacher leader model standards. https://www.ets.org/s/education_topics/teaching_quality/pdf/teacher_leader_model_standards.pdf