Focus: Professional Practice (p.12)
OCT Expectations:
"Members apply professional knowledge and experience to promote student learning. They use appropriate pedagogy, assessment and evaluation, resources and technology in planning for and responding to the needs of individual students and learning communities. Members refine their ongoing inquiry, dialogue and reflection" (Ontario College of Teachers Foundations of Professional Practice, 2012, p. 13).
Curated Materials:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KWFZf65Jxg
Analysis/Reflection:
Definition of Professional practice (Drawn from the curated artifact)
According to the curated artifact teachers are able to maintain a professional practice by using a variety of self evaluation/reflection tools. The biggest step being self assessment where teachers look deep into the processes and things they have done, which allows the teachers to do some self reflection kind of like a self evaluation, to have a sense of what works and what doesn't. By performing these type of reflections teachers can develop meaningful lesson plans that are data-driven, differentiated (if needed) and tiered,with small group support. The artifact also mentions courses available to teachers like SCI endorsements courses available to teachers. Some teachers may use those as their professional practice goals or even doing anything content based if they had a grade level shift. If teachers are struggling in one particular area it's important to set reasonable goals and inform yourself of the resources available to attain your goal. If teachers can effectively determine their weaknesses they can work with coaches and grade level teams on strengthening their knowledge on a particular content area. There are many resources available for teachers to develop their professional practice but deep self reflection is required to determine weakest skill sets and strategies that need immediate improvements.
Why the Resource informs my understanding of the OCT standard "Professional Practice":
The resource is an effective strategy to learn about professional practices because the content is being conveyed by professionals who have a lot of experience in the teaching field. It helped me understand that self-reflection is one of the most important things teachers can do to successfully meet the needs of every student by planning or differentiating instruction if needed. Every student is growing academically and physically during their elementary school days so its important that teachers maintain self reflections to tackle an issue right away instead of waiting till the information is no longer fresh in the students memory. These good practices are what separate excellent teachers from average or bad teachers. Not only are your students growing but teachers are growing and developing skills as well with every experience that occurs within the school setting.
Level of Reflection:
Reflections being one of the most important things teachers can do to maintain a professional practice is a great strategy to help teachers develop their skills to help facilitate students developing their's. Every level of reflection is needed to insure that students are experiencing an optimal way of learning that is both meaningful and rewarding to each individual. Teachers can use reflections as a useful tool to develop their skills by identifying things they struggle with. Once teachers use reflection to identify the issue there are many Ministry resources and documents in their school that can help them practice and develop the issue. Talking to experienced associate teachers who have done a lot of reflection on the same issue would be a very good source to have because I find that real life perspectives are sometimes better then written documents with a lot of wordy explanations.
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KWFZf65Jxg
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