What about you? Did you branch out a little this year? Take a different approach to a subject? Take any risks?
These are questions teachers might be asking, as the 2016/17 school year winds down.
In order to help you answer those questions, it may be time to ask your students to help you create your teacher evaluation portfolio. It’s a quick and short activity, and a great way to help you grow in your teaching practice.
Take a quick poll of your students to find out what their favourite learning unit(s) were. What did they like about it? How would they change it? If they were in charge of planning the unit, what would they include?
Jeremy Mettler, featured in the film, reflects on what worked when he took his senior geography class outside to talk about geographic features, “The first time I did this, it didn’t work because we took notebooks and pens, etc and with the wind, kids were just having too much fun and all they remembered was being outside.” Mettler, thinking through the goals for the lesson and the general nature of his students, tried again, but this time he asked the students to use their phones for note-taking, “Some lesson plans work and some don’t. You have to be ok with failing and remaining flexible.”
Here’s a longer read on creating your teaching portfolio: http://www.washington.edu/teaching/teaching-resources/assessing-and-improving-teaching/self-reflection-on-teaching/