Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities
The fourth domain Danielson described consists of professional responsibilities, a broad term covering various things a teacher needs to do outside the classroom to keep the entire show going. From the student's perspective — and perhaps that of most people when they think of teaching — this is everything that goes on behind the scenes, yet teaching can't happen without it. There are four sub-domains:
Domain 4a: Reflecting on Teaching
Not a lesson goes by when I don't think to myself, "Well, that didn't go quite as planned." Each class period gives me a bit more information about how long it takes to carry out a certain activity, how quickly students can complete a certain piece of work, or how I can clarify the purpose and requirements of an assignment to help my students carry it out. A lesson plan may be made up days or weeks ahead of time — yet adjustment to it isn't just day to day, but hour to hour. Throughout my student teaching, my mentor teacher and I regularly discuss how my delivery has improved and how it still needs to. At the end of the day, I type up anything important to remember and see whether I can incorporate it into the next day's efforts.
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| A simple but effective way to collect grades. One column per class; add names as you go. | |
At my school, grades are recorded electronically and each student can see their outstanding assignments on Canvas. Not having been granted access privileges, I maintain my records on paper. It took some experimentation to find what works for me. Simpler can be better — in my case, a blank notebook page allows me to record each student's name and grade without having to spend time locating their name on a prepared gradebook, a lifesaver when students are still filing into the room and I need to check work quickly. Homework checks done this way are also a great opportunity to familiarize myself with students' names! After my mentor teacher enters the grades in the computer, the page goes out of my notebook into the folder.
A way to improve in this area would be to reserve a minute at the end of class to touch base with students who either hadn't arrived or didn't find their homework while I was checking it. It's not satisfactory record-keeping until I have an answer for each student.
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| Laying out expectations. |
Domain 4c: Communicating With Families
A teacher can only do so much without the cooperation of parents at home, and inevitably over the course of the school year, teachers and parents will need to share concerns with each other. Around the middle of my period of full-time student teaching, I sent home a letter with each student introducing myself to parents and opening myself for contact. As my student teaching approached its final weeks, I sent letters communicating course content and how they could help make sure their child was prepared. I've also made sure wherever possible to get in touch with parents at back-to-school night and conferences.
My participation in the community during my student teaching has been limited but nonetheless elucidating. Anyone who knows me knows that pep rallies are not something I would have been inclined to attend if they weren't part of my chosen career, yet I've found myself obliged to do so on several occasions, if only to offer one more voice of support to participating students — and the experience was startling: the enthusiasm that young people bring is contagious. Likewise, I'm aware of the need for teachers to share knowledge and coordinate their decisions and schedules across the school, and while as a student teacher there isn't a lot I've been able to bring to the table, I've tried to keep my ears open at every staff meeting I've attended, both the occasional schoolwide meetings and the regular weekly grade-level ones.
Domain 4e: Growing and Developing Professionally
The phrase professional development may be intimidating — it certainly was to me when I started out — but in teaching it's a pillar of our practices. Every day I find out more about what it takes to be a good teacher, as thousands of others are also doing through studies and experiments with new practices. As a result, teaching is a particularly "meta" profession; in other words, teachers are also students of their own craft long after they've gotten the basics down.
Nobody's perfect, and in a profession where every day is a show before an audience, the best way to be aware of where you need to do better is feedback from those who see you in action. In my student teaching, I've gotten an outsider's view of my skills (particularly in the areas of instructional delivery and classroom management) from my mentor teacher, university officials, and my own students. I am always thinking of and trying to act on this feedback.
When I was young, I didn't think it was necessary to keep up to date about my own profession and where it was going. Luckily I got my rude awakening long before I went into teaching. As an educator I try to keep an ear open for trends in education nationally as well as what's going on in my own district(s). Trade websites focused on education news don't just offer new events but also new ideas. Recently, Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day led me to Education Week and this column about a subject that's long interested me, the ultimate usefulness of teaching students to hold debates. While finishing up my study of student achievement that relied heavily on pre-assessments, I came across an article on Edutopia giving tips on how to make pre-assessment more useful. Articles like these make it clear that, just like a student writing a paper, a teacher can plan a lesson more effectively by drawing on a broader range of sources.
Domain 4f: Showing Professionalism
If you visited my school, you would see the famous saying "T.H.I.N.K. before you speak" posted in the halls and classrooms. The saying runs, "Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it inspiring? Is it necessary? Is it kind?" To me, a teacher needs to have much the same attitude when dealing with students. Are all students perfect? Of course not; no one is. But all students need and deserve our support, which is the whole point of being a teacher.
A good teacher doesn't only know the facts they're reciting, but also the significance of them; and similarly, a good teacher knows not only what to teach or what the school rules are, but how what they're teaching will help students in the future, and why the school rules exist. Everything is or should be for the students' good; otherwise, it is purposeless. As I'm handing students an assignment to draw facts and inferences from collected historical sources, I not only explain to them exactly how to complete the assignment, but also how this is one of the first steps in doing research, one of the methods we use to learn about unfamiliar subjects, and how it will be a skill they'll need in the future. When I call for quiet in the classroom, I try to always remember to remind them that it's because I'm announcing something they need to hear or to have consideration for their classmates who are working.
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