PERSONAL THEORY OF TEACHING II Brennan 1

Mary Brennan
Field II - Spring 2017
Personal Theory of Teaching, Learning, and Assessment II
For Field II, I had the opportunity to observe 10th grade biology classes at Scranton High

School. The atmosphere at Scranton was unlike any I have had before; the sea of students was

more diverse with ability, culture, and language. With these differences, there were more

challenges that the teachers had to overcome in order to complete objectives that I have seen

other schools accomplish. This, in turn, re-emphasized my ideals I had mentioned in my first

theory of teaching, learning, and assessment.

Unlike the other schools I have been in, there was a large population of ELLs in this

district. While their prevalence was well known, my cooperating teacher did not seem to largely

differentiate her instruction specifically for their striving learners. Upon inquiry of what she

does to support them, she replied that while she can provide written notes as a supplement for her

dictated notes, their English language instruction is not part of her class necessarily as that type

of differentiation would require a lot more time and resources than she felt herself able to

adequately provide. I found this fact to be particularly striking because the students lack of

understanding of the language prevents them from being able to learn. As a future educator, I

aim to be able to have proficiency in providing assistance to these striving learners as possible.

To do so, I would aim to provide opportunity for them to associate what they already know with

the new vocabulary in order to help them foster a better understanding of the content.

Additionally, I would aim to make their learning a more collaborative process and utilize more

group work in order to provide more opportunities for the students to take ownership of their

learning.
With regards to the use of formative assessment in the classroom, I believe that it can be

very useful and crucial to the success of not only the students but also for me as a future

educator. Based on how I saw my cooperating teacher teach the class, I believe that having more
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of their individual work turned in would allow her to gauge her students progress in their

content learning more frequently than quizzes currently do. While I understand that more

grading means more work for the teacher, I think that having the students switch papers with

each other to grade the assignment would be most beneficial in order to help the teacher

accomplish this goal. By having them grade their peers papers, the class would be reviewing

the material as we went over the papers and be able to receive feedback on their own work more

quickly than if I were to have to grade each one individually, which would in turn allow them to

better monitor their progress as learners.

In addition to assignments that evaluate the students knowledge, I think that providing

the students the opportunity to rate the assignments will be able to help identify the strengths in

weaknesses in my instruction and their learning. By providing more feedback, I will be able to

determine what is working and what needs to be changed in order to improve the chances of

having all the students reach their potential. I think that a survey format would also help them

get a handle on how best they learn and where they are in their process of learning. When I was

in high school myself, I had a teacher who asked us to do a quick survey at the conclusion of

each chapter that evaluated not only how we felt about the material but also how we thought she

did with teaching the material. By doing this, more students admitted to feeling more

responsible for their learning and also felt more comfortable to ask the teacher for help.

Subsequently, I believe that utilization of this type of assessment would create an environment

more conducive to learning.

In conclusion, my time at Scranton allowed me to gain the insight of what type of teacher

I would like to be. Through the delivery of my live lesson, I realized that while I often thought I

would be nervous for teaching all by myself, I felt much more confident than I anticipated. This

experience also helped me feel more confident in my ability to engage students and provide
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meaningful course work in order to help them achieve their goals. In addition to exposing my

strengths, this experience has also helped illuminate the aspects I need to improve upon such as

finding my teacher voice, not being nervous about classroom management, and balancing my

objectives within a period. However, while I know there is always room for improvement, I look

forward to the opportunity to learn and further develop my personal theory of teaching, learning,

and assessment in the coming year before my student teaching.