online assignment(2)




ONLINE ASSIGNMENT
Submitted By,
varsha Mohanachandran. U.M
Candidate Code; 169 18 361 008
Option: Social Science
Emmanuel College Of B.Ed Training,Vazhichal


Self Reflection,Peer Evaluation,Assessing student’s performance as feedback for their progress, teacher’s proficiency, talent involvement

INTRODUCTION
Teachers are the greatest assets of any education system. They stand in the interface of the transmission of knowledge, skills and values. Teacher education plays a vital role in reforming and strengthening the education system of any country. Training of teachers has emerging global trends in education and the overall needs and aspirations of the people. The Quality of education depends on the quality teachers and teaching. The way teachers are trained is an important aspect to improve quality.
Reflective practice has become a focus of interest and a powerful movement in teacher education. The complexity of teaching requires teachers to question their practices for their own professional development in order to improve and to increase learner performance. Reflective practice is the ability to reflect on an action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning. A key rationale for reflective practice is that experience alone does not necessarily lead to learning; deliberate reflection on experience is essential.
Reflective practice is an important tool in practice-based professional learning settings where people learn from their own professional experiences, rather than from formal learning or knowledge transfer. It is the most important source of personal professional development and improvement. It is also an important way to bring together theory and practice; through reflection a person is able to see and label forms of thought and theory within the context of his or her work. A person who reflects throughout his or her practice is not just looking back on past actions and events, but is taking a conscious look at emotions, experiences, actions, and responses, and using that information to add to his or her existing knowledge base and reach a higher level of understanding.
Reflection, in the words of a layman, “… simply means thinking about something,” but for some, “it is a well-defined and crafted practice that carries very specific meaning and associated action” (Loughran, 2002). Reflective teaching, at a very general level involves ‘thinking about one’s teaching’. Reflective teaching is a process where teachers think over their teaching practices, analyze how something was taught and how the practice might be improved or changed for better learning outcomes. Some points of consideration in the reflection process might be what is currently being done, why it's being done and how well students are learning. By collecting information about what goes on in their classroom, and by analyzing and evaluating this information, they identify and explore their own practices and underlying beliefs. This may then lead to changes and improvements in their teaching.
Reflective teaching is a beneficial process in teacher professional development, both for preservice and in-service teachers. Ur (1999) says that the first and most important basis for professional progress is simply the teachers’ own reflection on daily classroom events. So, she gives emphasis to personal progress through reflecting on one’s own activities and practices that happened in the class and thinking.

Reflective practice is a process that facilitates teaching, learning and understanding, and it plays a central role in teachers’ professional development. When student teachers carry out systematic enquiry into themselves, they understand themselves, their practices and their students. By constantly looking into their own actions and experiences, they professionally grow in their own. In this study, the researchers conducted a qualitative research to see the effectiveness of reflective practices in the development of student teachers. The study examines how the teacher educator created opportunities for student teachers to develop their reflective practices during their practice teaching sessions. The paper attempts to establish that reflective practice is a tool for student teachers to explore themselves and thereby leading to their professional development.





SELF REFLECTON
Self-reflection is a simple way to dig deeper into your feelings and find out why you were doing something or feeling a certain way.
With a profession as challenging as teaching, self-reflection offers teachers an opportunity to think about what works and what doesn’t in their classroom. We teachers can use reflective teaching as a way to analyse and evaluate our own practices so we can focus on what works.
Why is Self-Reflection So Important?
Effective teachers are first to admit that no matter how good a lesson is, our teaching strategies can always be improved—oftentimes it’s why we seek out our colleagues’ opinions.
However, we run the risk of our audience making snap judgments about our instruction without truly having the context to support it—especially in regard to why a student didn’t understand it or why something happened amidst your instruction.
Self-reflection is important because it’s a process that makes you collect, record, and analyze everything that happened in the lesson so you can make improvements in your teaching strategies where necessary.

The Process of Reflection

Connecting self-reflection to effective teaching is a process. The first step is to figure out what you want to reflect upon—are you looking at a particular feature of your teaching or is this reflection in response to a specific problem in your classroom? Whatever the case may be, you should start by collecting information.
Here are a few ways that you can do this:
  • Self-Reflective Journal: A journal is an easy way to reflect upon what just happened during your instruction. After each lesson, simply jot down a few notes describing your reactions and feelings and then follow up with any observations you have about your students. If it helps, you can break up your journal into concrete sections, such lesson objective, materials, classroom management, students, teacher, etc. In this way, you can be consistent with how you measure your assessments time after time. You can find specific questions to ask yourself below.
  • Video Recording: A video recording of your teaching is valuable because it provides an unaltered and unbiased vantage point for how effective your lesson may be from both a teacher and student perspective. Additionally, a video may act as an additional set of eyes to catch errant behavior that you hadn’t spotted at the time. Many colleges actually use this method to teach up and coming teachers the value of self-reflection.
  • Student Observation: Students are very observant and love to give feedback. You can hand out a simple survey or questionnaire after your lesson to get students’ perspectives about how the lesson went. Think critically about what questions you’d like to ask and encourage your children to express their thoughts thoroughly. It’ll not only be a learning experience for you, but also an indirect exercise in writing for them.
  • Peer Observation: Invite a colleague to come into your classroom and observe your teaching. Now this is much different than when you have your principal come in and watch you—it’s much more casual and devoid of darting eyes. As a result, you’ll be able to teach more naturally and give your colleague an honest perspective of your instruction methods. To help him frame your lesson critique more clearly, create a questionnaire (you can use some of the questions below) for your colleague to fill out as they observe. Afterward, make some time to sit down with him so he can more accurately convey what he saw.


PEER EVALUAION
Peer Evaluation or Peer review is a type of performance evaluation that is done by one or more people of matching competencies. Peer review is usually done among the members of the same team. This is a method employed to preserve the quality standard at a desired level and improve productivity and performance.
Advantages:
• It provides a broader range of information about the employees. This is important especially in today’s team based workplaces.
• The provide a complete picture of employee interactions and also reveals the employee’s strengths and weaknesses. These may or may not be very apparent to the manager, but in the peer reviews these can be easily captured.
• Knowing that performance assessment is not only done by their managers but also their team mates encourages the employees to work harder and impress their colleagues
• The feedback provided by peers are easier to relate with. This helps the employees to understand their shortcomings and enhance their performance

Disadvantages:
• Opinions provided in the reviews may be polarized. Especially in case of departmental loyalty or friendship, it becomes very difficult to judge an employee from the review provided by their colleagues. The same may also happen in case there exits any unhealthy competition between colleagues or departments.
• This may lead to overburden of work for the employees and may in turn hamper their regular tasks.
• Employees form small communities at work place especially those from the same team. Asking them to evaluate each other may be uncomfortable
• If confidentiality of the reviews are not maintained properly, the y might strain peer relations and affect team dynamics

Peer evaluation is an effective collaborative learning strategy. Related to self-assessment, peer evaluation encourages students to critically examine a task and its performance, then communicate constructive suggestions for improvement. In the process of examining the work of peers, students reflect on the meaning of quality work in general, especially when consulting a detailed rubric or checklist as a guide.
The use of peer evaluation in group work can increase motivation, engagement and social presence in a course while maximizing instructional time. In effect, the students themselves provide feedback to one another, while the instructor focuses on more targeted guidance. The key for successful peer feedback is a constructive, honest environment in which students feel safe to share honest, yet helpful criticism.
Through monitoring one another, based on a rubric or checklist, students ultimately learn to better self-assess themselves, a skill which pay dividends throughout their academic and professional career. As additional benefits of peer evaluation, students learn to:
1.      apply course concepts and skills to solving problems
2.      collaborate with others towards a common goal
3.      examine diverse perspectives and ideas
4.      assume greater responsibility in the learning process
5.      apply (and possibly create) objective criteria to judge the quality of a task or performance
Peer evaluations also resolve the "free rider" problem with group work, that is, the tendency of students to rely on team members to take the initiative in completing group assignments or tasks. By adding an element of accountability and critical review, students will more likely exert effort to ensure a positive review from their peers (and create a good impression).

Tips to Implement Effectively

·         To implement an effective peer evaluation students must fully understand expectations in advance. Set clear goals and expectations for the process.
·         A detailed rubric or checklist is critical to ensure evaluations are respectful, constructive and helpful.
·         To avoid emotional complications and hurt feelings, provide examples of effective evaluations. Be sure to emphasize as required characteristics that evaluations be respectful, constructive and helpful.
·         To encourage self-direction and responsibility, allow students to create their own rubrics or checklists (though you should still approve prior to use as an actual assessment tool).
·         Allow students to practice peer evaluations, preferably in the form of a self-assessment or a peer review for a low-stakes activity (e.g. class or online discussion).




ASSESSING PERFORMANCE OF THE STUDENTS AS FEEDBACK FOR STUDENTS PROGRESS
Assessment is a critical piece of the learning process. This lesson gives an overview of assessment, why it benefits both teachers and students
Assessment is a critical step in the learning process. It determines whether or not the course's learning objectives have been met. A learning objective is what students should know or be able to do by the time a lesson is completed. Assessment affects many facets of education, including student grades, placement, and advancement as well as curriculum, instructional needs, and school funding.
Assessment is designed so that students understand their progress towards course goals and modify their behavior in order to meet those goals. In order to do that, assessment should be ongoing. In other words, classes that use one or two exams a term are not using assessment as effectively as it could be used. In order for students to gain a true representation of their understanding, frequent assessment is critical, and it should be accompanied with feedback.
Assessment is really only as good as the feedback that accompanies it. Feedback is the teacher's response to student work. In order to make assessment as effective as possible, teachers should provide their feedback as well as a letter grade. It is important that students understand why a particular question was incorrect or why their essay did not meet requirements.

Make Assessments Useful

 

For Students


Nearly every student has suffered the experience of spending hours preparing for a major assessment, only to discover that the material that he or she had studied was different from what the teacher chose to emphasize on the assessment. This experience teaches students two un-fortunate lessons. First, students realize that hard work and effort don't pay off in school because the time and effort that they spent studying had little or no influence on the results. And second, they learn that they cannot trust their teachers (Guskey, 2000a). These are hardly the lessons that responsible teachers want their students to learn.
Nonetheless, this experience is common because many teachers still mistakenly believe that they must keep their assessments secret. As a result, students come to regard assessments as guessing games, especially from the middle grades on. They view success as depending on how well they can guess what their teachers will ask on quizzes, tests, and other assessments. Some teachers even take pride in their ability to out-guess students. They ask questions about isolated concepts or obscure understandings just to see whether students are reading carefully. Generally, these teachers don't include such “gotcha” questions maliciously, but rather—often unconsciously—because such questions were asked of them when they were students.



Classroom assessments that serve as meaningful sources of information don't surprise students. Instead, these assessments reflect the concepts and skills that the teacher emphasized in class, along with the teacher's clear criteria for judging students' performance. These concepts, skills, and criteria align with the teacher's instructional activities and, ideally, with state or district standards. Students see these assessments as fair measures of important learning goals. Teachers facilitate learning by providing students with important feedback on their learning progress and by helping them identify learning problems (Bloom, Madaus, & Hastings, 1981; Stiggins, 2002).
Critics sometimes contend that this approach means “teaching to the test.” But the crucial issue is, What determines the content and methods of teaching? If the test is the primary determinant of what teachers teach and how they teach it, then we are indeed “teaching to the test.” But if desired learning goals are the foundation of students' instructional experiences, then assessments of student learning are simply extensions of those same goals. Instead of “teaching to the test,” teachers are more accurately “testing what they teach.” If a concept or skill is important enough to assess, then it should be important enough to teach. And if it is not important enough to teach, then there's little justification for assessing it.

For Teachers


The best classroom assessments also serve as meaningful sources of information for teachers, helping them identify what they taught well and what they need to work on. Gathering this vital information does not require a sophisticated statistical analysis of assessment results. Teachers need only make a simple tally of how many students missed each assessment item or failed to meet a specific criterion. State assessments sometimes provide similar item-by-item information, but concerns about item security and the cost of developing new items each year usually make assessment developers reluctant to offer such detailed information. Once teachers have made specific tallies, they can pay special attention to the trouble spots—those items or criteria missed by large numbers of students in the class.
In reviewing these results, the teacher must first consider the quality of the item or criterion. Perhaps the question is ambiguously worded or the criterion is unclear. Perhaps students mis-interpreted the question. Whatever the case, teachers must determine whether these items adequately address the knowledge, understanding, or skill that they were intended to measure.
If teachers find no obvious problems with the item or criterion, then they must turn their attention to their teaching. When as many as half the students in a class answer a clear question incorrectly or fail to meet a particular criterion, it's not a student learning problem—it's a teaching problem. Whatever teaching strategy was used, whatever examples were employed, or whatever explanation was offered, it simply didn't work.
Analyzing assessment results in this way means setting aside some powerful ego issues. Many teachers may initially say, “I taught them. They just didn't learn it!” But on reflection, most recognize that their effectiveness is not defined on the basis of what they do as teachers but rather on what their students are able to do. Can effective teaching take place in the absence of learning? Certainly not.
Some argue that such a perspective puts too much responsibility on teachers and not enough on students. Occasionally, teachers respond, “Don't students have responsibilities in this process? Shouldn't students display initiative and personal accountability?”
Indeed, teachers and students share responsibility for learning. Even with valiant teaching efforts, we cannot guarantee that all students will learn everything excellently. Only rarely do teachers find items or assessment criteria that every student answers correctly. A few students are never willing to put forth the necessary effort, but these students tend to be the exception, not the rule. If a teacher is reaching fewer than half of the students in the class, the teacher's method of instruction needs to improve. And teachers need this kind of evidence to help target their instructional improvement efforts.

The Benefits of Assessment

 

Using classroom assessment to improve student learning is not a new idea. More than 30 years ago, Benjamin Bloom showed how to conduct this process in practical and highly effective ways when he described the practice of mastery learning (Bloom, 1968, 1971). But since that time, the emphasis on assessments as tools for accountability has diverted attention from this more important and fundamental purpose.
Assessments can be a vital component in our efforts to improve education. But as long as we use them only as a means to rank schools and students, we will miss their most powerful benefits. We must focus instead on helping teachers change the way they use assessment results, improve the quality of their classroom assessments, and align their assessments with valued learning goals and state or district standards. When teachers' classroom assessments become an integral part of the instructional process and a central ingredient in their efforts to help students learn, the benefits of assessment for both students and teachers will be boundless.






TEACHER’S PROFICIENCY
Teachers play vital roles in the lives of the students in their classrooms. Teachers are best known for the role of educating the students that are placed in their care. Beyond that, teachers serve many other roles in the classroom. Teachers set the tone of their classrooms, build a warm environment, mentor and nurture students, become role models, and listen and look for signs of trouble.
Teaching Knowledge
The most common role a teacher plays in the classroom is to teach knowledge to children. Teachers are given a curriculum they must follow that meets state guidelines. This curriculum is followed by the teacher so that throughout the year, all pertinent knowledge is dispensed to the students. Teachers teach in many ways including lectures, small group activities and hands-on learning activities.
Creating Classroom Environment
Teachers also play an important role in the classroom when it comes to the environment. Students often mimic a teacher’s actions. If the teacher prepares a warm, happy environment, students are more likely to be happy. An environment set by the teacher can be either positive or negative. If students sense the teacher is angry, students may react negatively to that and therefore learning can be impaired. Teachers are responsible for the social behavior in their classrooms. This behavior is primarily a reflection of the teacher’s actions and the environment she sets.
Role Modeling
Teachers typically do not think of themselves as role models, however, inadvertently they are. Students spend a great deal of time with their teacher and therefore, the teacher becomes a role model to them. This can be a positive or negative effect depending on the teacher. Teachers are there not only to teach the children, but also to love and care for them. Teachers are typically highly respected by people in the community and therefore become a role model to students and parents.
Mentoring
Mentoring is a natural role taken on by teachers, whether it is intentional or not. This again can have positive or negative effects on children. Mentoring is a way a teacher encourages students to strive to be the best they can. This also includes encouraging students to enjoy learning. Part of mentoring consists of listening to students. By taking time to listen to what students say, teachers impart to students a sense of ownership in the classroom. This helps build their confidence and helps them want to be successful.

Signs of Trouble
Another role played by teachers is a protector role. Teachers are taught to look for signs of trouble in the students. When students’ behaviors change or physical signs of abuse are noticed, teachers are required to look into the problem. Teachers must follow faculty procedures when it comes to following up on all signs of trouble.
What Makes a Great Teacher
·         expert communication skills
·         superior listening skills
·         deep knowledge and passion for their subject matter
·         the ability to build caring relationships with students
·         friendliness and approachability
·         excellent preparation and organization skills
·         strong work ethic
·         community-building skills
·         high expectations for all

1. Excellent Communication Skills
You'd think that the most important quality for a teacher to possess would be knowledge, since that's what the job is all about, after all: sharing knowledge. But no matter how knowledgeable a person is, if they can't convey what they know to others in a way that is not only understandable but engaging, the knowledge itself is useless.
·         If a teacher's communication skills (verbal, nonverbal, and visual, which involve speaking, writing, imagery, body language, and the organization of ideas into understandable structures) are good, they can convey knowledge with better skill and results.
·         Since a large part of good communication is knowing when the audience has understood, these teachers notice when they have communicated effectively and when they have not. They will often paraphrase, illustrate, or take another tact entirely when it becomes apparent that their communication has fallen flat or has not reached or connected to the entire class.
·         A good teacher notices when even one student among many does not understand, and makes an effort to communicate individually when necessary.
·         Communication also involves explaining exactly what the assignments and expectations are. When students fully understand what is expected of them, it's much easier for them to deliver.
·         Interestingly, not only are communication skills incredibly important in the classroom, but they are among the most important skills in any setting. According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, most Americans view communication as the most important skill for long term success “to get ahead in the world today.” So by being good communicators, teachers are modeling important lifetime skills by example.
2. Superior Listening Skills
In addition to being good communicators, good teachers also happen to be excellent listeners. As the Turkish proverb says,"If speaking is silver, then listening is gold." Of course, effective communication only happens when at least two parties are actively involved in the process together, and the only way to know if communication is heard is by asking (and listening to the answer).
So in an ideal learning environment, teachers ask important questions and then actively, carefully, empathetically listen to what learners have to say. When good teachers develop this patient quality in themselves, they start to become great. Great teachers listen hard and then use what they hear to improve the communication.

3. Deep Knowledge of and Passion for the Subject Matter

There is a saying that a teacher is only as good as what they know. If a teacher lacks knowledge in a subject, that dearth of understanding is passed along to the students. And keep in mind that although formal education is one way a teacher might gain the knowledge they need in order to teach well, there are other ways.
Passion is infectious. Love of a subject matter inspires a person to learn more, dig deeper, and think harder about it, so passion inspires deeper knowledge. The best teachers are those that clearly love their subjects and pass that passion and desire to learn more on to their students. When the teacher not only has the right answer to a student's question but can expand the discussion with vivid examples, amusing illustrative anecdotes, and relevant facts, and when the teacher has a deep well of understanding and expertise to draw on, then every lesson is enriched, and every student might be inspired.

4. The Ability to Develop Strong Relationships With Students

It's not enough just to know what you're talking about, though, and a great teacher doesn't only teach from the head. In the best classrooms, hearts are involved, as well. In order to create successful learning environments, great teachers need to be able to build caring relationships with their students. It is the caring student-teacher relationship that facilitates the exchange of information.
The best teachers are often the ones that care the most deeply, not only about their jobs, but about every student they serve. It's not enough just to love the subject matter: Great teachers also share a love of students. Caring about the students is what inspires teachers to reach out, do better, communicate more, ask, learn, refine, and improve. This is something that can't be taught, not even in the best school.

5. Friendliness and Approachability

Because it's the teacher's job to help students learn, they must be easy to approach. Students will have questions that can't be answered if the teacher isn't friendly and easy to talk to. The crabby, unapproachable, terse, mean, arrogant, rude, all-business teacher can't last long. If the students think of their teacher as their enemy, they certainly won't learn much. The best teachers are the most open, welcoming, and easy to approach.

6. Preparation and Organization Skills

No matter how charming you are, if you show up for a class without an excellent plan for how to teach your material, you won't succeed. Great teachers spend endless hours outside of the classroom preparing, designing lessons, learning more (both about their subject matter specifically and how to teach, in general), participating in professional development, and thinking of fresh and interesting ways to reach the students.
The best teachers have excellent lesson plans, lectures, and assignments that they continually improve. They have studied extensively and read widely about how to teach and methods to facilitate learning. They structure their days, lessons, and units in a way that fosters maximal understanding and interest. They collaborate with other teachers and attend classes to learn more about their subject matter and how to best convey it. They are available outside of class, and they grade papers quickly, writing personal notes to help their students understand.

7. A Strong Work Ethic

Anyone who's done it knows that teaching is one of the hardest jobs there is. The secret that keeps them going is that great teachers really, really want to be great teachers, and they'll stop at nothing do succeed. A great teacher will do almost anything to help their students. They always make time and they're always willing to help. If something doesn't work, they'll work tirelessly until they find a solution. A teacher's work is never done but the best ones never stop trying, they never quit.

8. The Ability to Build Community

The best teachers understand the importance of building supportive and collaborative environments. In addition to forming caring relationships with each student, the best teachers foster healthy and mutually respectful relationships between the students. They know how to establish guidelines and assign roles to enlist every student's help and participation. Every student feels like they are not only accepted by the larger group, but that their presence is a necessary ingredient in the classroom's magic. Their classrooms are like little communities where each individual plays a part and feels at home.

9. High Expectations for All

Studies show that a teacher's expectations have a huge impact on student achievement. The best teachers have high expectations for all of their students. They expect a lot from each student, but those expectations are both challenging and realistic. This doesn't mean they hold all students to the same high standard, but instead that they know what each student is capable of individually and strive to help each one attain their personal best.

TALENT INVOLVEMENT
Teaching can be a very rewarding career choice. You will have the opportunity to be in an educational environment, inspiring and motivating students to learn. But like every career, teaching can be difficult. Having specific skills and talents will help you succeed in the classroom. But don’t fret if you feel you lack these skills; they can always be learned. If you are passionate and care about making a difference, chances are that you can be a great teacher.
Passion
Everyone has probably had one teacher who just didn’t care. He spent the day explaining terms in a monotone voice, threw out whatever handout was available and screamed for students to behave. This sort of lackluster and lazy behavior shows a lack of passion for his profession. The most important quality of a good teacher is a passion for learning. As a teacher, you need to get students excited about learning and help them learn through your own enthusiasm. If you love what you are doing, it shines through. But remember that passion also needs to be matched by competency in the area in which you are teaching.
OrganizationalSkills
Teachers and educators are multitasks. There is never enough time in the day to complete what needs to be completed. If you are highly organized, you already have an important skill. A day at school can easily be wasted if time is not managed properly. A good teacher enforces strict routines and procedures so that students know exactly what is expected of them and what they need to be doing. An efficient classroom is an organized classroom.
Patience
Working with children can be difficult and frustrating. They all come from different backgrounds, and all have different skills and different personalities. Nevertheless, you are expected to reach all of them academically. This is a huge responsibility. You need to be patient in handling tough situations and misbehaviour. Students need to know that you care about them as individuals.
Creativity
The nation is moving towards stricter standards and benchmarks, and testing has become a huge issue. A good teacher will learn the curriculum through and through, and tailor it to the needs of students. It’s all about creativity and presenting that information in a way that all students will understand. Lesson plans need to inspire students; not every student has the same learning style, and good teachers offer variety in their lesson plans.




CONCLUSION
The reflective practice is a cyclical process, because once we start to implement changes, then the reflective and evaluative cycle begins again. As a result of reflection, the teacher may decide to do something in a different way, or may just decide that what she/he has been doing is the best way. Therefore, being a teacher one needs to reflect on the experiences or activities one is doing for one’s growth. In short, by developing knowledge and understanding the setting practice and the ability to identify and react to the problems the student teachers can become effective teachers. Teachers can deal with the needs and different issues of the learners and demand of time if they reflects on their daily teaching learning activities for their professional growth. To deal and survive in their professional field, the student teachers need to grow and bring changes in their behaviour and style. Reflection is a flash back that the teachers need to mediate for their development.


REFERENCES

·         Bloom, B. S. (1968). Learning for mastery. Evaluation Comment (UCLA-CSEIP), 1(2), 1–12.
·         Guskey, T. R. (2000b). Evaluating professional development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

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