TWS thoughts

While working on my TWS I realized several things. One being that I have a good background in planning instruction due to my undergraduate program. They provided me with the structure and practice that I needed to be organized and think things through before trying them out in the classroom. Secondly, I have become a teacher and have not forgotten these things, but have not thoughtfully planned lessons the way that I should everyday. I always have lesson plans; they are organized and functional; I make copies and gather supplies for the next day before I leave each afternoon, but I do not think as hard while making plans. In reflecting on this I cannot figure out whether or not this is due to the fact that I have been teaching the same things for four years and it just comes naturally to me, or whether I should spend more time thinking through my plans and have begun to slack off. A third thing I realized while writing my rough draft and discussing with my partner in class, was that I am doing many of things expected to receive a high grade on the TWS based on the rubric, which confused me more about which of two thoughts above are true. I am hoping by the time my rough draft is completed and turned in I have time to ponder these thoughts more and reflect on whether or not I really am good at planning.

On that thought... I did have time to reflect on some areas that I feel are my instructional strengths:
- aligning my classroom activities and goals with the state indicators
- using diverse assessment with my students
- allowing students to have choice in the classroom (I tried this to the extreme on Friday, by giving students three choices of ways to read a couple chapters in the novel we are reading and was amazed with the results - they were all really reading and enjoying it!)

I also thought about weaknesses I could improve on as well:
- giving more students personal attention and help
- preassessing students (which would be extremely useful in my advanced class)
- reflecting on my lessons, teaching methods, and activities
- differentiation on homework assignments (I tend to simply shorten assignments for certain students, but I feel more effective differentiation would be more helpful to them and me)