Inquiry project #5 – Preinternship

Leading up to preinternship, I was a little worried about how I was going to implement my inquiry project. But after some discussion with friends, I determined how I could! I determined that professional development doesn’t have to occur at a PD day, event, workshop, or camp. It can occur in any classroom at any time.

While preinternship itself could be considered as professional development, I wanted to take advantage of the situation and engage in further development. The use of target sheets for feedback and reflection was one way that I incorporated professional development into my preinternship. For each lesson that I taught, I prepared a target sheet with steps on how I was to be successful and how to collect data. I would get my coop to observe my teaching and record notes, and then discuss how it went. After some of my lessons, I also recorded things that I thought I needed to work on or that I would change if I were to do it again.

Another way that I incorporated PD was by receiving feedback on my teaching using Student Opinion forms. For each class that I taught, I had students complete a simple survey asking questions about my strengths, weaknesses, and areas that I could improve on. I wasn’t sure as to what kind of responses I would get from the students, and received some serious responses, and some not so. However, they still provided me with some descriptive feedback that I can use to improve my teaching practice. Some strengths of mine were student relationships, having a loud and clear “teaching voice”, and getting the students engaged. Some suggested areas of improvements include my writing/printing, being more confident in my work, and to avoid answering questions for students.

These professional development techniques are not only beneficial for me as a becoming teacher, but they will also be beneficial for my future students as I become more experienced. Below are some examples of target sheets and student opinions from my preinternship.