Reflections

My 2020-2021 Growth Goal - Teaching During the Covid-19 Pandemic

I want to make our remote classroom experience to be as joyful as possible. I would like to try to shelter my students and myself from the stresses and pressures that the pandemic has created. I want to create an authentic connection with my students in hope of achieving that classroom nirvana of peace and productivity. For the remainder of this year I want to focus on making students feel safe, and loved, and understood. Safe enough to take academic and social risks. Safe enough to try and fail. In this close knit, loving environment, I want failure to be seen as part of the process, not an embarrassment.

I changed this goal after a month in to the school year. Previously, I was going to focus my attention on assessing students for mastery, but with the pandemic in full swing I decided to focus my energy on the students’ overall mental health and well-being.

Goals Beyond the Classroom

Teacher Workloads and Advice to New Teachers

According to Primary Sources (a study conducted by Scholastic and the Gates Foundation), the average teacher works 53 hours a week. Another study  found that 78% of teachers feel they don’t have enough planning time to properly address Common Core standards. Also, almost half of teachers report stress levels high enough to interfere with their health, their sleep, and the quality of their work. With the onset of the Corona Virus which brought about Distance Learning, I believe these numbers have increased, leading to even more cases of teacher burnout. After enduring a year and a half of these additional stressors, it’s more important then ever for teachers to have ways to adjust their workloads in the upcoming year.

Here’s how I plan to adjust my workload in order to stay passionate about teaching:

1. Start unit planning instead of planning individual lessons

2. Delegate tasks to students

3. Swap lesson plans and classroom management strategies with collogues

As I started to feel overwhelmed by the diverse responsibilities of teaching, I simply took a few moments to identify my priorities. I had to decide what had to be done and in what order. Then I created an achievable way to accomplish those tasks. Early in my career I decided I would create longer unit plans at the beginning of the year or semester to lighten my weekly lesson planning. Using these unit plans I am easily able to create weekly assignments that lead up to accomplishing the overall unit goals and standards. I will continue to use unit plans but I would like to include more details and resources to make weekly planning even easier.

In the upcoming school year I will incorporate more delegating simple tasks and responsibilities to students. These include, checking in and out of photography equipment, setting up and cleaning up digital cameras, organizing photo props and SD cards, updating computer software, and cleaning up their areas. I hope that by delegating these responsibilities students will have more respect for the equipment and it will open up more time for me to help students.

Along with incorporating the above strategies, I would encourage new teachers to remember to embrace the little joys of teaching. There is so much satisfaction in watching and celebrating students' learning advances. Purposefully staying in the moment of those small, incremental successes, instead of letting your mind wander to other tasks and nagging dilemmas, may help you stay attuned to what drew you to your profession (website: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/positive-strategies-avoid-stress-burnout-donna-wilson-marcus-conyers)

A comparison of my Initial CSTP and my Final CSTP Self-Assessments

I completed my initial CSTP assessment at the beginning of the 2020-21 school year and the final assessment 8 months later. Here is an overview of their comparison:

Initial

1. CSTP 6 Developing as a Professional Educator

2. CSTP 2 Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning

3. CSTP 3 Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning

4. CSTP 5 Assessing Students for Learning

5. CSTP 1 Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning

6. CSTP 4 Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for All Students

Link to Initial 2020-2021 CSTP Self-Assessment: https://bit.ly/3y98vOH

Final

1. CSTP 6 Developing as a Professional Educator

2. CSTP 3 Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning

3. CSTP 2 Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning

4. CSTP 5 Assessing Students for Learning

5. CSTP 4 Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for All Students

6. CSTP 1 Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning

Link to Final 2020-2021 CSTP Self-Assessment: https://bit.ly/3ojvkuw

I am most proud of my achievement in CSTP 3: Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning.

When I first began looking for a teaching position I realized that teachers with a single subject art credential could end up teaching an array of mediums. This meant I wouldn’t be able to begin planning lessons until I was hired and there was also a possibility that I would be teaching an artform that wouldn’t have any curriculum options. This ended up being the case when I accepted the Digital Photography teaching position at Menifee Valley. Over the last 2 years I believe I have grown in my knowledge of the subject matter and have learned how to incorporate the newly adopted Media Art standards as presented to California in 2019. I have gained a better grasp as to what instructional strategies work best for middle school students in the areas of photography and design and have gained a lot of free technology recourses for students to use. As technology continues to evolve I know that I must also stay up-to-date with the latest trends and applications. I can see that I still have much to learn but I will continue to adapt resources, technologies, and standards-aligned instructional materials to make photography and design accessible to all students.