Ask Dr. BKW - What should be in my teacher reflective journal entries?

Teachers has been asked to maintain reflective journals throughout the school that will assist assigned evaluator and mentor ensuring teachers are working toward highly-qualified education for children and their families. The question was posed “What should be in my teacher reflective journal”?

The teacher journal is used to aid teachers to reflect on practices in the classroom, relationships between teacher-child, teacher-parent, teacher-colleague, and teacher-stakeholders at large for the betterment of preparing children for school success in the 21^st century.  Journal entries provide a way to record teacher activities/strategies, thoughts and ideas about events, it is more thought provocative to better your skills as a teacher.  Remember teacher reflective journal entries should be used as ‘learning’ journals.

Scanlon and Chemomas (1997) have three-stages that can be used as you write entries in your teacher journal:

1.      Stage 1:  Awareness.  These are your thoughts about an event in teaching that went well or strategies for implementing different.

2.      Stage 2:  Critical Analysis.  You are exploring what happened and why.  Also, you will relate previous experiences with the ideas and practices used.

3.      Stage 3:  New Perspective.  This is confirmed or reinforced based upon your reflections.  This stage supports your understanding of when development occurs, in thinking and/or feelings, and sometimes change may occur in your practices.

Here are some helpful tips for writing reflective journal entries as you progress forward this school year.

1.      How are thing going overall?  What seems to be going well and/or not well?

2.      Select a specific situation you were directly involved in (with children, colleagues, parents, etc.) which you want to think more about.  Your journal entries will focus on your interaction as a teacher (i.e., what you said and did).  Here are some prompts that can assist in your reflective writings.

a.       Describe the meaningful experience in detail so your reader will gain a clearer understanding of the situation (what happened?, what did you do/say?, what did the children/adults involved in the situation do/say? , and so forth).

b.      Elaborate on what you hope the outcomes would be in this interaction.

c.       Elaborate on how you used questions, comments, materials and/or other means to facilitate or participate in interactions.

d.      Envision how you would re-do the situation with same children/adults, what are two or three things you would do differently to improve outcome?

e.       What did you learn about yourself as a teacher though this interaction?

Remember there are different resources you can Google on reflective journal writing entries that best works for you to show your growth through this process as a teacher.   As you continue to reflect hopefully it will enhance the conversation among your assigned evaluator and mentor as they work with you the be the best educator for children.

   

Ask Dr. BKW - How to write professional development plan goals?

The school year has started and teachers need to review their teacher evaluation rubric to conduct a self-assessment then select at least two (2) as goals to work on to ensure the students and their families receive the best quality education given by the teacher.  The question posed was “how to write professional development plan goals?”

Here are some helpful tips one can follow:

1.       Complete the self-assessment used by state teacher licensing agency;

2.       Review all Standards and Elements as self-rated;

3.       After review, select at least two (2) then share self-rating with administrator and together agree on the lower scored Standards and Elements that would best benefit and enhance the teaching performance;

4.       Review the “Professional Development Plan” use by state licensing agency such as the one below.

Teacher’s Strategies

Goals for Elements       Goal 1   Goal 2

Activities/Actions

Expected Outcomes and Evidence of Completion

Resources Needed

Timeline

 

5.       Record goals 1 and 2 according to the selected Standards and Elements.  These are goals and strategies identified to improve performance.

6.       Think and record draft notes of activities/actions you will do that relate back to goals.  NOTE:  Remember the activities/actions must relate to goals in conjunction show linkage to the “Framework for 21^st Century Learning.”  Think about activities/actions that will be implemented throughout the school year.

7.       As you think about “Expected Outcomes and Evidence of Completion” this will be documented evidences of artifacts/data that can be reflected in teacher’s portfolio, children’s portfolio, teacher reflective journal writing, on-site learning environment and children’s assessment data to name a few ideas as you record your own.  Remember you must have documented proof/evidence you are working toward completion of goals during mid-year review and completion at end-year review.  Therefore, it is important to select beneficial goals to work on per school year.

8.       Record the “Resources Needed” to meet the goals set.

9.       The “Timeline” should be ongoing and completed the last month – year of school.  This gives you the opportunity to edit goals, if needed and reviewed during summary evaluation.

10.   Share the draft PDP with your administrator ensuring they will support all recorded information to meet goals.  When agreement has been made complete final draft.

11.   Submit final draft to mentor (if assigned) or to evaluator for review then obtain required signatures and date to complete the initial process.

Hopefully, these tips will give a better insight on how to write professional development plan goals.  Knowledge is powerfulJ!

Impact of Federal Shutdown on NC Children

As the federal government debated on the fiscal matters, on October 1, 2013 was the official first day of the 2013 – 2014 a partial federal shutdown began that impacted many programs and service.  The longer the shutdown the greater the impact will be upon our youngest non-voting citizens. 

 

Here are some of the anticipated impacts for children in North Carolina.

1.      Federal government pays for the majority of child care subsidies.  The funds come from two sources, the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Neither of these programs authorized beyond September 13, 2013.  The NC Department of Health and Human Services has indicated that both CCDBG and TANF funds will run out before the end of October. 

2.      Child Care Regulators were furloughed as of October 3, 2013.  These are the persons who monitor and license all child care programs.

3.      The WAGE$ program has been frozen and administrative staff furloughed. 

4.      Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) Programs are frozen.  Programs help parents find quality child care programs and teachers in improving quality and assist organizations interested in starting child care programs.

5.      The Supplemental Nutrition Program for Woman, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides supplemental food, health care referrals and nutrition education for almost 264,000 women, infants and young children each month.  Initially, the NC Department of Health and Human Services stated the program would shut down in October when funding ran out.

Advocacy is important and the key to let your representatives how your thoughts and the impact directly or indirectly are having in your county, state and nationwide of the federal government.  Urge them to end the shutdown immediately. If unsure how to contact them you can find your Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives.find/ and Senator at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/sentators_cfm.cfm.

 

 

 

 

Federal Shutdown Impacts NC Young Children and Families

October 1, 2013 was the first day of the 2013-2014 federal fiscal year. Because Congress did not enact spending legislation to fund the federal government, a partial federal shutdown began – impacting many programs and services. The North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation has a fact sheet outlining the anticipated impact on several programs that serve young children and families in North Carolina.  The mission of the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation (NCECF) is to marshal North Carolina’s great people, ideas and achievements to build a foundation of opportunity and success for every child by the end of third grade. NCECF works to create an environment that inspires and supports diverse people and organizations to come together to produce large-scale, lasting change