Final Reflection

edTPA is an assessment process designed by educators to answer the essential question: “Is a new teacher ready for the job?” As a teacher candidate in her last semester at Hofstra, it is extremely important that I not only plan lessons with the edTPA rubric components in mind, but that I am a reflective about my instruction after each lesson. Although I believe that all of the lessons that I implemented with Leydi Sanchez were strong, there was one in particular that was the most successful.

On Wednesday, March 20^th, 2013, I completed the third ELA lesson with my fifth grade student. The focus of the lesson was on writing rubrics, and the behavioral objectice was, “Utilizing the writing rubric and the RUBRIC strategy, the student will be able to accurately critique and assess at least two out of three “how-to” writing pieces.” The use of rubrics are connected to research and theory. Nitko (2001) stated that when grading rubrics are shared with students, the learning aims are clarified. Although teachers provide grades and feedback to students regarding the quality of their work, self-assessments and peer-assessments are necessary components that help students reflect on their performance. During the lesson, I could tell how excited Leydi was to grade other author’s essays and see her own essay graded in front of her. In doing so, it gave her writing a real purpose, and she learned the significance of a writing rubric. In fact, she told me that she wished that her teacher used writing rubrics to make her aware of what she needs to do to get a perfect score on an assignment, and so that she can see why she got a particular score.

This lesson made clear connections to the learner’s strengths and needs; I used my knowledge of Leydi’s strengths and needs to inform planning. During the second ELA lesson, I noticed that the student neglected to use the rubric to guide her writing. She had looked at it once or twice, but did not utilize it to help her compose the essay. When I asked her why she had put it off to the side, she explained that she still did not understand how it worked. With this in mind, I decided to focus this lesson on teaching Leydi how to use the writing rubric in order to accurately critique “how-to” essays. Due to the fact that Leydi is a strong reader, this plan engaged her to use her strengths to build upon her learning needs.

I adapted this lesson by permitting the focus learner to utilize the Spell Better application as an assistive technology. Leydi is a very bright young girl, but requires some assistance with spelling. This application helped her to assess the spelling and grammar in the essays that she evaluated. Leydi was able to target each spelling error in the essays, and correct them.

In order for Leydi to understand the requirements of this lesson, she had to fully understand what a rubric was. If students are to use this tool effectively, they must be properly introduced to them. Therefore, at the beginning of the lesson, I identified the vocabulary and the communication demands related to the learning target and language function by making connections to what she already knew and the unknown; I used the “How to Succeed in the Fifth Grade” writing rubric to help me discuss what a writing rubric is and describe its components (the columns on the left list the criteria for what must be included, and the columns on the right describe the different levels of quality). In doing so, not only did Leydi learn about writing rubrics, but she was given a support that helped her to assess other author’s essays. In addition, in order to help Leydi with the language function needed to carry out each task, I modeled the components beforehand, and gave her a RUBRIC strategy cue card, which she later used as a scaffold to self-direct herself in carrying out the behavioral objective.

This lesson had many supports that provided access to the behavioral objective and learning task. The writing rubric was one support that acted as a framework for the focus learner to understand the expectation of the assignment before it began. Leydi’s knowledge of the grading criteria and its importance in the product was strengthened because she was involved in using it. The RUBRIC strategy cue card was another support. It acted as a springboard, which activated Leydi’s memory on how to perform the task. The student was able to adhere to the learning task because the steps were right there in front of her.

As the teacher and the student collaborated with each other during the “Bring a buddy to help you rate again,” and the subsequent stages, the child developed greater language proficiency. Leydi was able to feed off of the teacher; she asked questions, learned new insights, and had her ideas validated. When the teacher and the student verbalized their thoughts, it improved the student’s understanding of the processes; she was able to have a conversation with the teacher and agree upon a score.

The teacher modeling stage, which is when I demonstrated the strategy to be learned, offered an invaluable support that provided access to the demonstration of the language demands and the behavioral objective. This stage is so important because it has been proven that when teachers act as models, it makes the concept or skill clear and learnable, and it enables students to make meaningful cognitive connections. The modeling was such an amazing support because I made sure that I included high levels of teacher-student interaction, and immediately followed it with opportunities for practice.

The support from the writing rubric and the RUBRIC strategy cue card, in conjunction with the support that the teacher provided during modeling and guided practice, moved Leydi towards generalization of the targeted vocabulary and communication. As I modeled the behavioral objective and the use of the strategies, I used thinking aloud to improve Leydi’s understanding of these processes. By the time Leydi had to complete the task independently, she had already witnessed a model of the performance, had an opportunity to practice the task with the teacher’s guidance, and had the teacher’s example and writing rubric to use as a reference.

The formal assessment—the use of a rubric to assess the student’s ability to follow the rubric in assessing other author’s essays—was aligned with baseline data. As I had learned in previous lessons, when Leydi is told what is required of her at the beginning of the lesson, she uses it to ensure that she carries out the behavioral objective. Also, a need that she had was to learn how to utilize rubrics. Therefore, this lesson used a rubric to assess the student’s ability to follow the rubric in assessing other author’s essays.

However, the student was not just assessed at the end of the lesson. The teacher informally monitored the student’s progress through learner questions and responses during instruction, and teacher observations of the learner. The teacher used the information from informally monitoring the student in order to modify support and feedback as necessary, so that strengths and needs were addressed. Due to the fact that Leydi seemed to have a pretty good grasp on rubrics, she was challenged to take what she had learned and apply it by independently assessing at least two out of three essays.

The informal assessment provided information about where the learner needed additional support to make progress and work toward generalized use of the skills. The “Bring a buddy to help you rate again” stage, and subsequent stages provided the instructor with the luxury of interacting one on one with the student and listening to them verbally announce their thought processes. Fortunately, Leydi did not need any additional support. The teacher was able to witness the student successfully carry out the behavioral objective. However, if the lesson were done with a different student in the future and they had difficulty, the teacher would be able to note exactly where and why the child struggled during the lesson, and then provide support as needed.

This lesson went extremely well and if it were implemented again, I would not do anything differently. The assistive technology, the supports, the alignment to the student’s strengths and needs, as well as the universal design of the lesson, allowed the focus learner to generalize what they had learned and self-direct themselves to successfully carry out the behavioral objective.