Portfolio of Jan Abernethy
DOMAIN FOUR: PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
4a Reflecting on Teaching
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What made this school year one of the most rewarding ones for me was the students. I had the smallest class size I have ever had in the seventeen years I have been teaching. My usual class size of 25-28 was shrunk down to 21 this year and it really made a difference! I used to joke with my friend who had class sizes of 16-18 that if I had class sizes that smallI would have them ready for college by the end of fifth grade. Well this group may not be ready for college, but if they were forced into the job market right now, they would definitely be employable! I really got to know these kids and I was able to give them the differentiated instruction they needed. If I was ever asked to rank the importance in education of small class size to any other factor I would always rank it as the most important, because it means that every student is important. It means there are more teachers per students. What makes a private school better than public school? Money? I don't think so. I honestly think it's small class size.
As a teacher of the Fantastic Ferrets, I focused on were creating a community of learners, fostering a collaborative spirit, while encouraging students to become independent, capable problem solvers and
contributors to society. That's a lot to expect from fifth graders, but that's when I get them and that's when
I get my chance to make my mark on them. Trust me, this group, who named themselves the Fantastic
Ferrets, was up for the challenge.
Every year my class gives themselves a name, and every year I challenge them to do something big,
to make a difference, and change the world. Honestly, they hardly, ever let me down. I have had classes
do big things! The Cyber Chickens took on Trinity Industries, The Techno Tigers took on Trash Mountain,
The Powerful Penguins wrote grants and won a national video contest, but the Fantastic Ferrets may
have surpassed them all this year. Every time I thought they couldn't come up with anything else, we
would have one of our routine brainstorms and look out….the Fantastic Ferrets would be on their way to
changing the world in one more way! Here are just a few of the ways my students changed lives this year.
Art for Patients Project: Students created art to hang
in the halls of UPMC Horizon Hospital in Greenville.
They changed out the art three or four times
throughout the year eventually recruiting other fifth
grade classes to help. Some of the art was drawings
and paintings, but some was photography taken
using the iPads and edited using apps on iPads. The
project was part of a bigger Global project called Rock
Our World. Other students from around the world
were doing similar projects in their communities.We
know the project brought joy to some of the parents
in our classroom, because they actually work at the
hospital and they remarked how proud they were to
see pictures of their children and their parents
(Grandparent's Day) hanging on the walls of their
employment. Unfortunately, the art cost the hostpital
a few demerit points in their end of the year quality
inspection. Although, they thought they would be in
the clear because the art was all laminated, the health
inspectors didn't see it their way. They were asked to
take all of the art down. The Fantastic Ferrets spread
their joy for about six months anyway! We participated
in Rock our World twice and both times the Walbergs
opened their home to us for the international video conference with all of the schools involved in the projects. Entire families came to share in the fun and learning as the Fantastic Ferrets shared their projects and watched as other schools from Poland and New Zealand and California and schools from all over the United States shared their projects with us.
ART FOR PATIENTS PROJECT
CYBER BULLY PROJECT
Cyber Bully Project: Students decided they wanted to put an end to cyberbullying and they came up with a plan to do it. They created a collaborative wikispace where students and teachers from around the world could share their ideas of ways to stop cyberbullying. They hosted a "Design a Button" contest where students from across the country submitted buttons. After a button was chosen, students set about writing persuasive letters to social media sites trying to convince them to use our button on their site so that people could report cyber bullying. Each week, a different student's letter was sent to all social media sites. Students also wrote letters to newspapers across the country asking them to run articles about their button, and they wrote to talk show hosts, too. We had the virtual button made into a real button and
began mailing it out to celebrities and politicians, asking them to wear it on the red carpet or the campaign trail. The kids didn't get a huge response, but they did get some recognition. They were asked by Discovery Education to present at their Spring Live Virtual Conference. which is viewed by thousands of educators across the globe. They are the first students ever to be asked to do this and they did a fantastic job! The day of the conference, the Record Argus tipped their hats to them, commended them, and made them the banner of their facebook page for several weeks for their work to battle cyber bullying.
Mrs. Ridgeway: Many of my students and I stayed after school
for homework club Monday through Thursday each week.
Students would get their homework done and then we would
work on special projects like setting up the trout tank or the
river tank or working on our robot or whatever else we might
be doing at the time. One afternoon, we heard a siren, and an
ambulance came and took the elderly woman away from the
house across the street. The students were very upset, and they
worried about what might have happened to the woman. For
days, the students watched out the window as cars came and
went, but there was no signof the woman. I was unable to get any information, and I didn't even know her name. Weeks went by, and the kids continued to watch the house. Suddenly in the middle of a lesson, one
of the students jumped out of their seat and yelled, "She's alive!" Every child ran to the window and cried for joy. Sure enough a frail woman was making her way with a walker from a car to the house with the help of a man. This all transpired in the winter and very early spring. The kids continued to watch every move the woman made and reported it to me. Finally, one Saturday (the day we were presenting for the spring virtual conference) we saw the woman sitting at her window. With parents' permission, I took a few of the students to her house and knocked on the door. After introducing myself and the students, I told her our story. Her
eyes twinkled when she met the kids and she told them her name was Mrs. Ridgeway. She said she was proud to have the Fantastic Ferrets looking out for her and she said they could wave to her from their classroom window and stop by anytime. A week or so later we were outside doing a science experiment and we had the opportunity to take the entire class over to meet Mrs. Ridgeway. She was even the recipient of a beautiful bouquet of dandelions! I believe the Fantastic Ferrets made a difference that day!
MRS. RIDGEWAY
BOOKS FOR FIRST GRADERS
Books for First Graders - This year I decided to tap into my greatest resource…parents. Because of all of the letter writing for the cyber bullying project, I was in need of some help for editing. I sent out an email to the parents in my classroom. Two great parents responded. I then dedicated three forty minute blocks a week to writer's workshop. During that time, students were to do nothing but write. If they finished their first letter, they were to write another letter. If they were done writing all of their letters, they were to write a children's book geared toward a first grader. The parent of a student in our classroom taught first grade
at Hempfield, so we decided we would read our books to them. When students started finishing books and we needed to write more, students began writing about pets in our classroom. Some used the pets as heroes or characters in their books. Others wrote books about how to care for our pets. That's when we decided we needed to invite the first graders to our classroom to read the books to them. What an awesome day that was!
The goals that I focused on for the school year were: reading and writing. By inviting parent's into the
classroom three mornings a week for writer's workshop, my students writing could not help but improve.
Many times we need to find time to fit this very important lesson in or that very important lesson in.
More times than not it's a grammar lesson that they need for "the test" at the end of the week or for a
unit test. The most logical place to find time is during writer's workshop, because of course it is English
and after all isn't grammar a part of English. The beauty of inviting parents in to help edit, in addition
to all the amazing help of them editing, is that you don't want to waste one minute of the time they are
there teaching a lesson on grammar. If a specific student needs a lesson, then they get that lesson while
you are editing with them. If the whole class needs a lesson, they get it at another time, but NOTHING
interrupts Writer's Workshop, because parent's time is valuable and we are lucky to have their help.
Some of the students became so enamoured with the "Moms" that I would go weeks without editing
work, and when I finally did see their raw writing, I would be amazed at how far they had grown in
their writing. I will ALWAYS ask for parent help, and if I am lucky in the future, I will get the amazing
help that I have gotten this year.
In reading this year, I didn't really do anything different than what I usually do, but my results were so
much more spectacular than usual. I credit that to the small class size, the extra help (DeLaune Siege)
and the competitive spirit of the students in my classroom. I only had one student that did not make
progress. Surprisingly, he is a very good student, a student I have a very good rapport with, a student
with many other talents, but no matter what I did, I could not interest him in reading outside the
classroom. Below are the results of my students benchmark test scores for Benchmark Test 1, 3, and 5.
I made a resolve to raise each students' score by 10% by the end of the school year. Most students'
scores exceeded that mark.
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GOALS FOR READING
All in all, I had a very satisfying year academically with my students, and a very dissatisfying year with my health. In this portfolio, I choose to focus on the satisfying and enjoyable times I had with the Fantastic Ferrets. Luckily, I have three months to think about ways to make changes and improvements to my teaching. My portfolio is not finished. I know what I want to do with it, and I have a rough draft of what is
not here. I will be working on it over the summer and it will be complete by September. It's a bit
of I bit off more than I can chew. I really wanted it to be digital and I didn't realize how much more
demanding making it digital would be. Also, I am not exaggerating when I say, this has been quite an
eventful year for the Fantastic Ferrets. They have done more than their share of special projects and
I wanted to make sure I included each and every one of them. Below is a collage of some of the events
not included in this reflection. I suppose they are my way of enticing you to keep looking back
at my portfolio this summer. ;-)
IN CONCLUSION
THE ALEX AND HAYDEN SHOW
The Alex and Hayden Show: The autism talk show idea came out of nowhere and
took off like a rocket. The entire class is behind it and everyone supports the
cohosts, Alex and Hayden, making them really feel like stars. It has done amazing
things for both of them, but it has also taught the rest of the class a lot about
tolerance understanding. The show began with a conversation on the playground
between Alex, Hayden, two other students and me. The next day, the first episode was
filmed and now just six weeks later there are ten episodes online. Each episode gets better and you can see the confidence and self esteem grow in Alex and Hayden as you watch each episode. I expect big things to come out of this for both of these boys, and I know it has changed the lives of all of the students in my class.
REGRETS IN 2013/2014
Math is one of my favorite subjects to teach, but I really struggled with it this year. I couldn't get used to teaching it in the afternoon, (especially right after recess) and I just didn't feel as organized as I should. After years of asking for it, I finally got a differentiated classroom, but I didn't use it to its full potential. I was teaching way too much out of the book and I was teaching way too much the same way and the same content to everybody. This served the top of the class very well. They soared, but I know I left some students behind.
Planning for the 2014-2015 school year, I will: put more effort into math curriculum. This summer
I would like to look into SmartBoard files, iPad apps, and computer games that might interest students
and meet the skill needs students struggled with this year. That will require studying Think Central files
of math tests and Power School results of categorized skills. Below are my GO Math test results. They
show students results on yearend data. Students are tested on end of the year 5th grade data at the
beginning of the year, middle of the year, and end of the year. Although it shows progress, it doesn't show
nearly enough progress. Some of the students didn't master more than 50% of the fifth grade curriculum.
What is going to happen when they are faced with the sixth grade curriculum? I will work to answer
some questions this summer. For example, what kept some students from doing better? Were they too far
behind on skills to begin with and they needed to work hard to get where they did? (Some students made
great gains but still didn't make the mark.) Was reading interfering with their math skills? If so,
was it decoding or comprehension? Were they having problems with math concepts or math
computation?
