Mr. D'Silva's Professional Learning Portfolio

The classroom where I'm doing my student teaching is carefully laid out for ease of teaching and movement around the room. The teacher uses an interactive Promethean board for slideshows, videos, and when reviewing written work.  To make it easier to view, students' desks are arranged into two blocks, both angled toward the board, with a few seats between the two that face directly forward. Gaps are provided that are sufficient to move between desks.  There's enough maneuvering space that, with a few minutes' work, desks can be rearranged into pairs or groups for cooperative work. The room is richly decorated with historical artefacts, including copies of antique posters and genuine antique clothes and appliances collected by my mentor teacher.  These frequently figure into our lessons; for instance, propaganda posters from World War I and II are used to teach students about how the government cultivated public support and contributions to the war effort.

An example of a student's completed homework for the lesson U.S. Power in Latin America.  (The student's name is redacted.)  This work shows how an answer that contains plenty of true information related to the topic still isn't necessarily the information the student's being tested on.  In this case, while the student's answer to question 3 is a very good description of the Panama Canal's purpose, it doesn't explain why the canal was built on an isthmus (the answer is that an isthmus is by definition narrower than the surrounding land, allowing the canal to be shorter).  In my classroom, homework is checked live by the teacher, which requires other students to wait while the teacher goes around the room.  This poses a challenge to time management and forces the teacher to choose between grading for accuracy or completion.  In this case, students were graded on completion.  This student received full credit.  On a test, this answer would be marked...

This is a lesson I will be implementing on Thursday, November 2, 2023.  Here I'm using a lesson obtained from Teachers Pay Teachers to go into greater detail on the different foreign policy approaches of U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, a topic discussed briefly in our notes today.  This one is multimedia to give students multiple ways of receiving information, and incorporates a total participation element by having students vote on which president they would attribute various quotes to, given their understanding of the subject, which should help me gauge their understanding.  The second activity is reading-based, but I believe allowing students to partner will let them put their heads together when locating and understanding pertinent information.  As always, during group activities I strongly encourage students to help each other. On Thursday I will be taping the lesson, reviewing it with my mentor teacher and site direct...