STANDARD #9: Professional Learning and Ethical Practice

The standard: The teacher engages in ongoing professional learning and uses evidence
to continually evaluate his/her practice, particularly the effects of his/her choices and
actions on others (learners, families, other professionals, and the community), and
adapts practice to meet the needs of each learner.

Narrative: Through multiple experiences in field

placements and classroom experiences, I was
able to practice reading aloud to students of
multiple age groups. In one such environment, I
was tutoring reading fluency to a student in a
one-on-one setting at Brooklands Elementary
School. I crafted an entire unit on reading
fluency that spanned seven lessons, focusing on
various strategies, such as Visualizing,
Synthesizing, and Questioning. In my final
semester at Rochester College, I also was given
the deliberate assignment of reading aloud with
the goal of retaining the attention of multiple
students of multiple ages, practicing inflection
and speed of reading. In this same semester, I
attended professional development at my field
placement school in order to gather research-
based strategies to reach students of impoverished communities.
Reflection: Reading aloud was an experience that I truly appreciated. This allowed me the
opportunity to practice a skill that has been proven to develop fluency and interest in reading.
Managing different age groups during one particular exercise allowed me to understand that
each age group responds differently. The students’ ages ranged from 2 to 10, and I was able to
keep the attention of the students through expressive reading and asking questions, allowing
the students to make connections through the read-aloud. While tutoring a student one-on-
one at Brooklands Elementary, I had the student fill out surveys on what she liked to read. I
tailored specific assignments to the student’s reading interests and tested her lexile to ensure
appropriate and engaging reading in our tutoring sessions. The professional development
sessions I attended covered the topic of teaching students who are traumatized by poverty and
its tremendous effects on learning. These were eye-opening sessions that allowed me to see
how I represent myself in the classroom can make or break a student’s school experience, and
allowed me to rethink how I can make school a sanctuary for a student whose home life is less
than ideal.