CSTP Growth & Development

Strengths:

For my Initial CTSP area 6 was my highest area, Developing as a Professional Educator. For my final CTSP area 2, Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning came ahead. In the beginning my second highest area was CTSP 3, Understanding & Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning. I believe the shift from CSTP 6 to CSTP 2 was by thinking about all students in my program, not just the ones who have signed up for multiple levels, and take part in productions, but also the ones who take it as a general elective class.

Opportunities For Improvement:

My biggest area for growth would be CTSP 4: Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for All Students and CTSP 5: Assessing Students for Learning.

In regards to CTSP 4, I am a new teacher with no direct course a-likes on my campus it was up to me to develop curriculum to meet the needs of a diverse population without the ability to compare to what colleagues had done previously in the field. I'd like to take the units I've developed this year and find ways to expand them to fit a wider array of students with unique Zones of Proximal Development. This would include expanding into Eastern, and urban styles of theater

In regards to CTSP 5, I would like to engage my students more in their own self assessment.

Currently the performance process is students:

Research

Rehearse

Preview their piece, and get feedback from both peers, and I

Rehearse

Final performance, with feedback from both peers, and I

I would like to build tools for self reflection such as a performance journal where students can discuss what they felt they did well, and what they could have improved upon. In this way my students will become more self-reliant and able to critically look at their own work.

How I have surprised myself this year:

This year I have taken over a large program with a well established identity. While I have been helping with this program for awhile now this was the first time that it was mine to lead by myself. I was so happy to see the students stay engaged even with the changes that happened with a new leader at the helm. They have also helped me in areas that I was not expecting. They helped me find new areas to explore through curriculum mapping and providing input of both projects they'd like to work on as well as telling me areas they hadn't delved into before.

They also gave input on how we should set up the classroom to better utilize its space. My classroom is a double wide class (old choir room) The last teacher had it set up as two very wide rows with an area up front. The first issue was students at the extreme edges had issues seeing the projector screen. The other issue was that the upfront space tended to get filled and not be effective as an acting space. I changed the room to put the tables on 1/2 of the space and left the other side open for acting effectively dividing my classroom into a traditional learning space and an acting area. Students were able to see the projector much better, and we were able to maintain our acting area better.