As a K12 teacher who wishes to improve in my teaching and assessment techniques, I consider the following standards:
a. Breadth of Coverage: – This refers to how students will utilize their acquired knowledge after graduation. This objective should be in line with those set by schools, districts/states and countries. For example, the breadth of coverage could focus on developing students’ performance as problem-solvers, team players and effective communicators. Teachers’ input in education management are always most useful during curriculum development considering that guidelines in the schools’ mission statement provide a scale upon which performance is weighed for productivity.
b. Feasibility of Measurement: – Every academic institution functions with mission statements and goals though are not intended to be used as standards for performance assessment. Further, standards and objectives are formulated to with assessment in mind. However, mission statements aid description of students’ observable behaviours. Yet, inasmuch as standards should be amenable for assessment, they also need to be comprehensive, objective and consistent, with emphasis on complex-but-integrative classroom tasks performed beyond an academic term.
Furthermore, it is necessary for teachers and schools to develop and use effective standards according to their disciplines.Efforts from schools, districts and states aimed at developing good standards should be broad enough to include critical thinking skills and personal development which are not always found in content standards.
- How to Learn Better
i. PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: Meaningful learning refers to teachers’ efforts geared towards aiding students to understand and relate meaningful information to existing knowledge already stored in their brains, including its retrieval when needed. To improve in their studies, students therefore need to take control of their learning, which is critical to their personal development. These highlight the importance of elaboration and visual imagery.
ii. ELABORATION: Research findings show that elbaoration is not the same as rehearsals which imply use of exact words. In this context, elaboration encourages application of different methords or words in learning. To understand this better, one needs an insight into some types of elaboration strategies such as Mnemonics (use of a learning device which aids retention of information), Re-writing, Note-taking, Comparisons, and Self questioning.
To improve teaching and learning practices, I will ensure that my students understand the contexts and freely challenge themselves by re-phrasing the information in original words. This eliminates cases of plagiarism in academic and general writing.
iii. VISUAL IMAGERY: This learning strategy refers to the use of pictures to memorize and remember a date, phrase, word or any other information. As a teacher, I can enhance teaching and learning through visual imagery by, for example, helping students understand the word “elephant” as a big, gray animal–without necessary taking note of the letter E-L-E-P-H-A-N-T. This works better in learning and increases information retention capacity by around 400%.
Moreover, it is true that a picture tells more stories than words. This teaching and learning strategy will not only improve the overall performance of my students but enhance my career development plans for better performance on the world stage.
ACADEMIC SCORES 