Personal Development Plan

Thomas Sparkes
Florida Southwestern State College
SCE 4943

Goal
Create a system
so that papers can
be easily located,
students know
where to submit
completed
assignments and 5
out of 5 lessons
take the expected
amount of time to
complete during
class period.

Actionable Steps
1. Created a system of
filing folders, expanding
enveloped and trays for
papers that the students
turn in. work turn-in
trays set in the same
spot so students know
where to find them.

FEAP
2a. Organizes,
allocates, and
manages the
resources of time,
space, and
attention.

3. Grading chart to use

while students work. I
can circulate around
room, check for
completed notebook
work, notes and small
assessments.

2. Timer on phone to
keep track of activity
length, transitions, or
how long students are
taking on notes.

Description/ successes
This internship has shown me that my need for
organizational skills was greater than I initially anticipated.
Given the opportunity wo work on a few strategies I
decided to first work on the system in which I stored and
maintained the papers I had received from the students to
grade as well as the papers I needed to hand back. At the
beginning of the semester I would just throw all my papers
into a folder and sort them out when I went to grade them
and enter them into the gradebook. This used up a great
deal of time and I found myself missing students papers or
even misplacing them once they were graded. I went out
and bought myself some filing folders, filing stands and a
13 pocket accordion pocket folder to sort everything into. I
cannot begin to tell you how much this helped me. I divided
everything up into grade level, then not graded, graded, and
submitted and then I had pickets for incomplete and hand
back. Creating this system greatly reduced the volume of
lost papers, ungraded papers or misplaced papers, cutting
down on my grade time immensely.
Keeping time is difficult for experienced teachers, let alone
a novice like myself. For the first few weeks of my
teaching, I found myself running over time or not being
able to finish the activities I had planned because I gave
students extra time to write down notes or finish an activity.
The clock in our room was always broken, so I reverted to
using my phone as a timer and stop watch for activities and
transitions. The moment I began to actually watch the clock
and keep time of each transition or activity, the class would
more consistently finish activities and I was left with time
at the end of the block to answer questions and clarify what
we had just covered in class. I was easily gaining 7-10
minutes back a block just by keeping track of timing.
Another strategy I picked up was to check students journal
and notes while they were working on the starter or another
activity. I would circulate the room, checking students
work, while simultaneously taking attendance and watching
for off task behavior. During some classes we would work
on small activities that werent turned in or I would want to
check that they were finishing their notes, so at the end of
each week I would circulate the class, checking for

completed work, while randomly asking questions to the

table I was checking to make sure they understood what
they wrote.

Use a diverse
selection of
formative and
summative
assessments and
use data collected
to modify future
lessons and
remediation for
10 out of 10
lessons.

FEAP
4c. Uses a variety
of assessment
tools to monitor
student progress,
achievement and
learning gains.

1. Half sheet quizzes

used initially as
summative assessments,
then as ticket-out-thedoor formative
assessments.

At the beginning of each class, I would give students a half

sheet quiz to assess what they had learned from the class
before. The quiz should take no more than five minutes for
them to complete, but what I soon found is that the quizzes
were often failed and the students would begin the class
frustrated and discouraged. When I asked the students what
was going on, I often got that they werent going over any
2. The use of larger
of the noted or using the text book reading to complete their
projects, like posters,
work, just guessing or going from memory. I began to use
element baby books, or
the quizzes at the end of the block as a ticket out the door
labs as summative
and a regular assignment grade instead of a quiz grade, and
assessments
it became more of a review and sum-up tool to let the
students see what they needed out of the lesson.
3. Used questioning,
This semester, I wanted to get some practice in
conversations, as well as
administering labs and giving projects for the students to
personal anecdotes and
work on. I feel that a larger scale project is a great way to
students stories to
see if a student understands the unit content and can read
address misconceptions
and follow instructions well. Of the labs and projects I
and assess students
administered, my favorites were a chemical and physical
knowledge.
change lab and the element baby book I did with my eighth
graders. The lab showed me if students grasped how
physical changes worked in a hands-on way, that let them
use the stoves in our classroom. The baby book was a
massive success that reinforced atomic theory and research
skills that the students will need for later projects. We had
one of these larger projects or labs about every two weeks,
this helped students stay focused and engaged on what we
were learning for the unit.
During my lessons, I did my best to make it conversational,
as opposed to lecture based. I like hearing what the kids
know and then work with that knowledge to scaffold new
information in a way thats easily digested. When I talk to
the students, I am always asking questions and clarifying
responses. The conversational tone of the class makes it
easy to see what students know or what they dont; and
from there I can modify the next lessons to make sure that

every student is reached and the information is understood.

Use higher order
1. Every lesson begins
thinking questions with starter that contains
to challenge and
a guiding question we
evaluate students
will discuss before
as well as
lesson starts
activating prior
knowledge and
2. Crated questions that
critical thinking in we will visit during the
4 out of 5 lessons.
lesson that will
challenge them to thinknot just yes or no
FEAP
answers
3f. Employ
higher-order
3. Used the three highest
questioning
orders of blooms
techniques.
taxonomy to create
questions: Analyzing,
Evaluating, and
Creating; and used them
as formative
assessments at the end
of each lesson to check
for understanding.

Each day, I put a question on the front board for the

students to answer. The question should take a sentence or
two to answer properly, and will set the overall tone for the
days lesson. I typically use a simplified version of my
essential question for the day that they would need to think
about throughout the lesson. After a few minutes I would
Have them answer and leave my responses open ended so
the students would have to think for the answer. By the end
of the lesson I would restate the starter question and see
what responses I would get from the students. It is our job
to make students think and challenge what they know so
when they do learn something new, its not given to them
on a silver platter, but earned and worked for.
At the start of the days lesson presentation I would have a
slide that asked two to three higher order questions for the
day. These questions would ask for students to analyze or
evaluate one of the objectives for the lesson we were
working, but with a focus on one of the more in-depth
areas. The students honestly hates these at first, mainly
because they were hard and they couldnt just give me a
one word response or because the answer wasnt in their
notes. They did not like having to think hard or creatively.
One of my favorite examples of this was when I asked my
eighth graders how deforestation and increased CO2
emissions from fossil fuel burning power plants would
affect photosynthesis and cell respiration. First they had to
make the connection to less trees means less carbon
fixation and those power plants add even more CO2 to the
air, and how plant and animal cells use both CO2 and O2.
The students had a very difficult time working through that
question. I let them discuss it in small groups to get them
started them let them discuss it as a whole class. At first
only a few students had an idea, but most had to be assisted
to get the ball rolling. I noticed that once they figured it out,
The students that struggled, but figured out the question did
not miss any question on the test about cell respiration or
photosynthesis. Higher order thinking questions challenge
our students to work for an answer and make getting the
correct response so much more rewarding.

The only time I was not able to work in HOTs was when
we has days were we just had to pound down some notes
and finish a project, but those days were extremely rare.

This semester, I had an excellent opportunity to grow and develop my skills as a teacher.
I found many areas that I needed great improvement in and other areas that I was doing well in.
One of my greatest areas of improvement was organization, being an adult wit ADD,
organization is a difficult area for me, but this semester, and guidance from my mentor teacher
has reinforced some great habits and strategies to assist with my future classroom. I also learned
how to implement many assessment strategies I learned in my practicum classes and created a
few projects that I will use well into the future.