Standard 2: Respectful Educational Environments
Teacher leaders model leadership by establishing a positive and productive environment for a diverse population of students, their families, and the community. Teachers are knowledgeable about cultures and global issues and how they are contextualized locally. Teachers help colleagues develop effective strategies for students with special needs. They encourage positive, constructive relations among colleagues and students. Indicators are:
- Facilitate the development of inviting, respectful, supportive, inclusive, and flexible educational communities.
- Create collaborative partnerships with families, schools and communities to promote a positive school culture.
- Facilitate and model caring and respectful treatment of individuals within the learning community.
- Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of diverse world cultures and global issues.
- Encourage high expectations for all students.
- Collaboratively design and implement curriculum and instruction that is responsive to learner differences.
Context:
This artifact, Let's Hold Hands Project, was created during RE 5140 under the direction of Dr. Elizabeth Frye. The Let's Hold Hands Project was designed to increase students' awareness of similarities and differences between themselves and classmates, learn about our community and community helpers, and learn about a culture from another part of the world. Our class partnered with a class from the Ukraine. Students began by creating a mini self-portrait paper doll and compared and contrasted with others in the class. We then went of a series of walking field trips in our community to learn about the community and community helpers. After the field trips, the class wrote a book to send to our partner class in the Ukraine to teach them about our community and they in return sent one to us. We also, immersed ourselves in Ukrainian literature both informational and fictional and learned about Ukrainian customs.
Rationale:
The Let's Hold Hands artifact shows my ability to facilitate the development of inviting, respectful, supportive, inclusive, and flexible educational communities. This artifact illustrates how I utilized walking community field trips to build partnerships between the school and community. In addition, the artifact also demonstrate my knowledge and understanding of diverse world cultures through the immersion in Ukrainian literature and customs.
Context:
I collaboratively created this artifact, Influential African Americans and How They Helped Shape History multi-text set, for RE 5730, Teaching Intermediate Readers and Writers with professor Amie Snow. This multi-text set was created using narratives, realistic historical fiction, and biographies. My colleague and I also created a PowePoint to build students' background knowledge before reading The Drinking Gourd. We did this specifically to assist our English Language Learners (ELLs). The unit consisted of several read alouds and a literature circle with accompanying vocabulary activities and as a culminating activity, the class wrote a shared I-poem about being a conductor on the underground railroad.
Rationale:
This artifact demonstrates that I have created a respectful educational environment for students by recognizing the diverse population that I serve and teaching all students about the significant societal contributions and historical significance minority groups have had in shaping our nation's, state's and community's history. Additionally, this artifact demonstrates that I have collaboratively designed and implemented curriculum and instruction that is responsive to learner differences.