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Teacher Work Sample

Grade 10 World History

University of Alaska, Southeast

ED S691 Internship
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Table of Contents Page

Contextual Factors…………………………………………………………………………3

Learning Goals……………………………………………………………………………..7

Assessment Plan…………………………………………………………………………..9

Design for Instruction……………………………………………………………………..11

Instructional Decision Making……………………………………………………………19

Analysis of Student Learning…………………………………………………………….22

Reflection and Self-Evaluation…………………………………………………………..27

References and Credits…………………………………………………………………30

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Contextual Factors

Kenai, Alaska is an extremely small, tight knit community where everyones lives

are intertwined. As a student teacher at my alma mater, I have found it to be both

positive and negative, that everyone knows everyone in this little town of ours.

Throughout the classes that I am in, I know roughly 50% of families (both parents and

siblings). This influences the relationships that I have and will form with my students

throughout the year and the various strategies I will employ throughout my instruction.

The fact that I know the families of my students has been both helpful and

difficult to say the least. Establishing the teacher-student relationship is hard when a

student has known me since they were wearing diapers. While this is not a wholly

negative factor, it has impacted how I interact with certain students throughout KCHS. I

am constantly reminding students that they can not call me by my first name, talk to me

like they would outside of school, or discuss the relationship between myself and their

older siblings or parents. It has been a challenge, but I do believe that it has allowed me

to connect with these students on a personal level that can extend beyond the

classroom and into the community.

Kenai is composed of a variety of different races and ethnicities, see figure A for

a breakdown of these numbers, provided by the Alaska Census data on Kenai, Alaska

(2021). Due to this, my instructional practices have become more culturally diverse as I

have been able to lean on the local knowledge brought to the classroom by my

Indigenous students and their families. It has been a blessing to be able to rely on this

expertise in my lesson plans and topics I and my host teacher have chosen to cover in

our classes, namely, our Alaska Studies course.

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At Kenai Central High School, roughly 26% of our students are classified as low

income (Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, 2023). This impacts

learning in a variety of ways, but the most noticeable for me has been the lack of

resources outside of school. We have had students who were not able to complete their

assignments because they lack a stable internet connection, a computer to access

these assignments, or a place that can be dedicated to the student. My host teacher

and I have made accommodations for these students by providing extra time to

complete assignments, allowing them to check out a laptop to bring home, and even
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staying after school to give students a place they can focus and dedicate their time to

their studies.

Another factor of the socio-economic status of our students is that many students

struggle to get a well balanced meal, or a meal in general. My host teacher is a firm

believer that students can’t learn on an empty stomach, because of this he keeps a

stock of snacks (cup of noodles, granola bars, oatmeal, etc.) for students to utilize as

they need. When I asked him about his thought process on doing this he said there are

two main reasons that he provides food for students, the first being that it allows him to

build relationships with students that does not revolve around anything academic. The

second being that he noticed an increase in participation and overall grades once he

started doing this. I think that this is a great idea and he says the results speak for

themselves, students are participating more and earning better grades, allowing him to

have a more productive classroom environment for all of his students.

The classes that I will be teaching this unit to are my 2nd, 3rd, and 7th hour

on-level world history classes. Across these classes I have a total of 76 students, 9

IEPS, 7 504 plans, and 0 ELL’s. I also have a plethora of students who are chronically

absent/tardy, uninterested, disengaged and removed from the lessons and

assignments. These factors have guided my lesson plans, assignments, and discussion

prompts for this unit. For my students with IEP’s, I plan on following their provided

accommodations like extra time for working on the assignments, providing support on

the reading materials like text-to-speech as well as speech-to-text for completing the

assignment, and allowing them to work in their chosen groups as opposed to their table

groups. For my students who are chronically absent/tardy, uninterested, disengaged

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and removed from the lessons and assignments, I have uploaded all material to our

canvas page for absent students to access the material. I developed my unit plan to be

more project based as opposed to lecture based so students will be actively engaged in

the content. Finally, I developed the actual content and lesson to be discussion-led so

that students have a chance to participate and lead the discussion as opposed to me

lecturing to them for the 45 minute class.

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Learning Goals

Learning Goals: 1. Students will know the key countries of World War 1 and what side

these countries fought on

2. Students will understand the developments that lead to World War 1

(Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism)

The learning goals for this unit are closely tied to the Alaska state social studies

standards as well as the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District social studies

standards. Specifically these goals address the Alaska state standards A. 7 and C. 1 in

the social studies curriculum for World History (see table 1 for alignment of goals to

content standards). The levels of each goal for this unit have been structured under

Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives where both goal 1 and 2 ask students to

remember, understand, analyze, evaluate and create. These goals ask students to

explain in a variety of ways the key components of World War 1 including the four main

reasons the War started, and who the key players were in the War.

Throughout this week we will engage in discussions based on the lecture portion

of this mini unit as well as having presentations on each group's country they chose to

study. Students will be asked to identify, analyze, and discuss the key aspects of

M.A.I.N. as well as their chosen countries' allies, economy, and impact on the war

(through two different assignments).

My students will be graded on a rubric to determine if these learning goals are

met and to what level they met them. While I understand that this will be a spectrum

with some students fully grasping the concept and others that may not reach this full
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level of understanding, I believe that these learning goals are reachable for all of my

students, provided I offer the necessary accommodations and modifications to fit each

student's needs.

Table 1.

Learning Goal Alaska State Standard

LG1. Students will A. 1) understand chronological frameworks for organizing
understand the
developments that lead to historical thought and place significant ideas, institutions, people,
World War 1 (Militarism,
Alliances, Imperialism,
and events within time sequences;
Nationalism)
1b. Students will know how
each topic relates the A 5.) understand that history is a narrative told in many voices
causation of WW1.
1c. Students will be able to and expresses various perspectives of historical experience;
define M.A.I.N.
A 7.) understand that history is dynamic and composed of key

turning points;

C. 1) use appropriate technology to access, retrieve, organize,

and present historical information;

LG2. Students will know the B 1d.) the consequences of peace and violent conflict to societies
key countries of World War 1
and what side these and their cultures;
countries fought on
2.b Students will understand
C. 1) use appropriate technology to access, retrieve, organize,
the countries that fought for
each side
2c. Students will understand and present historical information;
what brought these
countries into the war
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Assessment Plan

Table 2 outlines the learning goals, types and formats of assessments, as well as

a prediction of possible adaptations needed. I will conduct a pre assessment on Monday

to gain insight into how many of my students have heard of the term M.A.I.N. before this

introduction. This will give me a general idea of how in depth I will need to cover these

ideas as well as how much assistance my students may need in the completion of the

research document. This first assessment will be a very simple thumbs up, down, or in

the middle activity. This will not be graded but it will allow me to gauge my students prior

knowledge of these topics. Throughout this week, students will complete two

assignments. The first will be a research document that provides an article for them to

read, and then subsequent questions they will need to answer. After the completion of

the documents, I will lead the class into the lecture where students will be at the

forefront, providing the class with their answers as well as answering questions to the

best of their ability.

The second assessment will be the completion of a poster project about a country of the

students choosing (from a provided list of countries that participated in World War 1).

This project aims to allow students the ability to choose their own topic (preferably

something they are interested in), and complete research on their own. Once the poster

is finished we will have presentations for the students to tell their peers what they

learned and give an overview of their countries role in World War 1.

These two assignments will be my formative assessments to see if the learning

goals have been met. A student who has met these learning goals will be able to define
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their topic from M.A.I.N. as well as give an in depth look at their country during their

presentation. While I understand that some of my students struggle with public

speaking, I will focus more on the information they provide on the actual document and

poster (for each assignment respectively). This will allow me to see if students have met

the learning goals, even if they struggle with the presentation aspect of this.

Table 2.

Learning Goals Assessment Format of Adaptations

Assessment
1. Students will understand Pre Thumbs up,middle, down on - Provide text to
the developments that lead to prior knowledge to content speech/speech to
World War 1 (Militarism, text for students
Alliances, Imperialism, Students will give a brief who need it.
Nationalism) presentation of their topic - Guidance on
1b. Students will know how highlighting what it was and accessing the
each topic relates the Presentation how it led to WW1 documents.
causation of WW1. - Allow for students
1c. Students will be able to to present in a one
define M.A.I.N. Students will submit their on one setting
documents for grading. This instead of infront of
Submission of Work will allow me to verify they the class.
completed the assignment as - Guidance on how
well as understood the topic. to submit.
- Ability for students
to work in groups or
solo depending on
student wishes
- Allowing students
to pick their topic

2. Students will know the key Pre I will ask students to quickly - Provide text to
countries of World War 1 and write down every country they speech/speech to
what side these countries know participated in WW1 text for students
fought on who need it.
Students will give a - Guidance on
2.b Students will understand presentation on the country of accessing the
the countries that fought for Presentation their choosing, highlighting documents.
each side various aspects of the - Guidance on how
2c. Students will understand country. to submit.
what brought these countries - Allow students to
into the war Students will hang their complete the
posters on the wall and presentation in a
provide to me their research one on one setting.
Submission of work document where they - Ability for students
compiled all of their to work in groups or
information to be graded. solo depending on
student wishes
- Allowing students
to pick their topic
- Providing the
necessary tools for
students (Paper,
glue, scissors, etc.)
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Design for Instruction

Table 3. Thumbs Up, Down, Middle Activity

Period 2 (P2) Period 3 (P3) Period 7 (P7)

Thumbs Up - 5 Thumbs Up - 7 Thumbs Up - 4

Thumbs Down - 14 Thumbs Down - 21 Thumbs Down - 17

Thumbs Middle - 3 Thumbs Middle - 6 Thumbs Middle - 8

Table 3 shows the answers provided by students when asked if they had ever

heard of the term M.A.I.N. before (associated with LG1). Those that gave a thumbs up

were asked to elaborate on what they knew and across all 3 class periods, only two

students knew what the acronym stood for, while the others had only heard of it. This

clearly showed that the pattern across all 3 classes was overwhelmingly in the thumbs

down category, this was what I had figured I would see. This pattern showed me that I

will more than likely need to provide support to my students as they struggle through the

readings and answering the questions associated with their topic of M.A.I.N., as well as

provide an introduction to the topic before I sent students on to complete the

assignment. I decided that it would be in my students best interest if I gave a brief

overview of the topic before I sent them to complete their own research so they would

have a better understanding of what they should be looking for.

For LG2, I asked students to as a table group spend 3 minutes writing every

country that they knew participated in World War 1 on a scratch piece of paper. I wanted

to see how many of my students knew who had participated in the war, and it would

give me an idea of what countries students may choose for the poster project that would

come later in the week. For this pre-assessment, students had a range of lists, from
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only having 1-2 countries while others were in the 10-15 range (see table 3 for a

comprehensive breakdown). Knowing that most of my students only knew some of the

countries that participated in WW1 I decided that I would give a brief overview of which

countries participated in the war and which side they had fought on. I decided on this so

that my students would have a better understanding of the options they could pick and

could choose a country that seemed interesting to them.

Table 4, Quick Write Results.

P2 (by table) P3 (by table) P7 (by table)

1-5 2 3 2

6-10 2 2 3

10-20+ 1 2 1

Below is my unit plan for my one week mini unit, broken down by each day (Table

5). The lesson plan will be standard across all 3 class periods, with specific

modifications provided on a case by case basis. There will be a combination of both

lecture and work days throughout the week, student lead discussions, as well as lecture

portions. The final assignment (and assessment) will be the poster project students

complete over Thursday and Friday. The table below will highlight the plan for each day,

the subsequent learning goal that is associated with the day, and the timeline for

students to complete work.

Table 5. Unit Plan by Day

Monday: 5 minutes: Greet class, complete attendance, open slide deck, introduce
Introduction to topic
topic, 5 minutes: Thumbs up, Middle, Down activity (teacher will record answers)
LG1 15 minutes: Introduction to WW1, brief recap of Militarism, Alliance,
Imperialism, Nationalism
5 minutes: Groups pick their topic,
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15 minutes: access document, begin research, (at this point the teacher will
be walking around the room monitoring progress, answering questions, and
guiding students to proper resources)

Tuesday: 5 minutes: Greet class, complete attendance, open slide deck

Lecture/ 10 minutes: Allow students time to access document and complete any last
discussion, minute adjustments needed (at this time the teacher will be walking around
LG1 the classroom checking in on progress and confirming that students are
ready to discuss their topic)
25 minutes: Teacher will begin the lesson on M.A.I.N., prompting each group
to lead the discussion on their chosen topic. After each group presents their
findings from the research document, the teacher will add any information on
the topic that they may have missed.
5 minutes: Thumbs up, middle, down (post assessment)

Wednesday: 5 minutes: Greet class, complete attendance, open assignment doc.

Introduction to 5 minutes: Have table groups complete a quick write on every country they
poster/ work know that participated in WW1
day 10 minutes: Introduce project, allow groups to choose their topic, answer any
LG2 questions about the expectations of this project.
25 minutes: Work time for students (during this time the teacher will be
walking around the class checking in on students and helping them get
started, answering questions, and helping students find resources for the
project).

Thursday: 5 minutes: Greet class, attendance, recover the expectations for the work
Work Day day
LG2 40 minutes: Student work time (during this time the teacher will be walking
around the class assisting students with their posters and answering
questions)

Friday: 5 minutes: Greet class, attendance, cover expectations for the presentations
Presentations 35 minutes: Student presentations on their poster (during this time the
LG2 teacher will be grading the presentation and the poster).
5 minutes: Quick write again (post assessment)

Lesson Plan #1 —- Unit Introduction —-- 10th Grade World History —--- March 18th, 2024

Overview: I will introduce the topic of the unit Objectives: Students will”
to the class and then call back their prior - Demonstrate prior knowledge of the
knowledge of the associated topics. Then topic
students will begin work on the research - Analyze documents to answer guiding
assignment of the day. questions on the topic of M.A.I.N.
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Activities: Adaptations:
- Short introduction, answering - Text to speech/speech to text
questions as necessary - Print out versions of documents
- Thumbs up, down, middle - Ability to work alone or with table
- Research assignment (answering groups
questions and providing support)

Lesson Plan #2 —- Lecture/Discussion —-- 10th Grade World History —--- March 19th, 2024

Overview: Today students will be working for Objectives: Students will

the first half of class to finish their research - Understand the topic of M.A.I.N.
documents. Once students have completed, - Demonstrate what they learned about
we will begin the discussion on M.A.I.N. and their specific topic
complete the lecture portion of the class.

Activities: Adaptations:
- Research Assignment (20 minutes) - Text to speech/speech to text
- Discussion (10 minutes) - Print out versions of documents
- Lecture (10 minutes) - Ability to work alone or with table
groups

Lesson Plan #3—- Introduction to Poster Project— 10th Grade World History– March 20th, 2024

Overview: The teacher will introduce the Objectives: Student will

poster project that is associated with LG2. - Students will know the key countries
This project will have students select a of World War 1 and what side these
country that participated in World War 1 and countries fought on
complete research on this country. The
culmination of this project will be student
- 2.b Students will understand the
countries that fought for each side
presentations on their country of choice.
- 2c. Students will understand what
brought these countries into the war

Activities: Adaptations:
- Students will complete a quick write - Allow for students to work alone
(pre-assessment) - Text to speech options
- Students will be completing research - Allow students to select country
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and working on their posters - Allow students to select group

members

Lesson Plan #4—- Work Day on Poster Project— 10th Grade World History– March 21st, 2024

Overview: Today will be strictly a work day for Objectives: Student will
students to continue working on their poster - Students will know the key countries
and prepare for presentations tomorrow of World War 1 and what side these
countries fought on
- 2.b Students will understand the
countries that fought for each side
- 2c. Students will understand what
brought these countries into the war

Activities: Adaptations:
- Students will be working on their - Allow for students to work alone
posters - Text to speech options
- Allow students to select country
- Allow students to select group
members

Lesson Plan #5 —---- Presentations—---------- 10th Grade World History—-- March 22nd, 2024

Overview: Students will give their Objectives: Student will

presentations to the class today, - Students will know the key countries
demonstrating their knowledge of their topic of World War 1 and what side these
country. countries fought on
- 2.b Students will understand the
countries that fought for each side
- 2c. Students will understand what
brought these countries into the war

Activities: Adaptations:
- Cover expectations for audience - Allowing students to present at a
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members different time if they are uncomfortable

- Presentations presenting in front of the class
- Hang up posters - Allowing students to screen share if
they completed a powerpoint

This unit hopes to hone in on students ability to meet learning goals 1 and 2

through the use of various activities. The first activity will be the completion of a brief

research activity where students will access a provided document and answer the

subsequent questions on the worksheet (google doc). This activity will address LG1

specifically as it allows students to complete research on an aspect of M.A.I.N. that they

find interesting and want to learn more about. Students often times will take more of a

hands on approach if given the opportunity to pick their own topic and I am hoping that

by allowing my students to pick which aspect they look into that I will see students

engaged with the content. For this activity we will need our classroom set of

chromebooks (available everyday) for students to access the document and

assignment. I have also printed off classroom copies of the documents if students wish

to read from paper as opposed to on a computer screen.

The second activity will be a classroom discussion (guided by the teacher) about

the students findings during their research. This discussion technique works very well

for my classes as my students get very tired of listening to me lecture every single day.

My classes have all voiced their desire to have a more discussion based unit and I am

trying to accommodate that wish with these discussions. The teacher will have the

slideshow on the main board for students to reference, but students will lead the lecture

by reporting their findings on their topic to the class. This will serve as my assessment

to see if LG1 has been met. These discussions will allow students to shine and show
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the class (and the teacher) that they have gained an understanding of M.A.I.N.

throughout these past two days.

The third unit activity will be the poster project that addresses LG2. My classes

enjoy working on posters, graphic organizers, and things of this nature. Due to this, I

have decided that allowing them to create a poster that gives an overview of a country

of their choice will be the best fit for my classrooms. This assignment will have guided

questions for the students to answer and then asks students to create a poster to share

with the class. Once completed, students will give a presentation on their country to the

class, highlighting what their country's role was in the war, various aspects of their

country, and what happened in the post-war years following WW1. These presentations

will allow me as the teacher to gauge if they have met LG2, serving as the assessment

for the learning goal. Below I have attached examples of student posters that were

completed and presented during this mini unit (Figure b).

Figure B.
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Instructional Decision Making

In a perfect world, teachers would be prepared for everything. We would have

every contingency plan in place prior to each unit, we would have a plethora of

resources for students, and be able to answer every and all questions, unfortunately we

don’t live in a perfect world. Across my classes I try to plan as best as I can to fit all

students' needs that I can foresee arising, however inevitably (as I’m human as well) I

make mistakes and sometimes forget things. Two instances of modification of the

original design for this unit are highlighted in this section, stemming from a classroom

response, and an individual student's response.

The first modification made came after my second period class (p2) complained

about the topics that they were assigned for the research document associated with the

M.A.I.N. lesson plan. My initial thoughts had been to just assign each group an aspect

of M.A.I.N. to look at so that way I could control how many groups looked at each topic

and try to avoid unnecessary overlap or the class not looking at one of the topics all

together. However, after my students' complaints I knew that the likelihood of them

actually completing the reading and gaining an understanding of the topic was zero to

none. I decided to make an on the spot change and I restarted, I told students that I

needed all 4 topics covered, but they could choose what they wanted to look at as long

as we did indeed cover all 4. I had groups raise their hands for which topic they wanted

to look at and then assigned accordingly. I continued this adjustment throughout the

other two classes as it had worked well with P2.

There have been numerous studies that show when a student is given the

autonomy to pick their topics as opposed to being assigned a topic they will engage and

retain the information far better. With this in mind I decided to carry this over to the
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following assignment, the poster project. I showed the list of available countries and had

students pick which one they would like to look at as a group. For any overlap that

happened, I would have students pick a number between 1-50 and the group closest to

the number got to look at that country while the group that lost would be given priority

over the next pick. This worked wonders for my classes as it allowed them to choose, I

created a mini game with the number guesser that they all loved, and it showed in the

work that they submitted.

The second instance of an on the spot modification came on the first day of the

poster project after I had divided out the topic amongst the groups and sent them on

their way. I had a student come up to my desk and ask if they could work alone for the

assignment because they didn’t want to work with anyone else. I had to make an on the

spot decision of how to modify the assignment to fit a singular student (the original

assignment is meant to be done in groups where group members can split the work

evenly). I decided on allowing the student to work alone and instead of creating a full

poster, they could create a slideshow presentation (2-4 slides) that covered the content

but would allow them to complete it within the time allotted.

The reason I chose this avenue as opposed to having them still complete the

poster is because the poster frankly takes a lot of work to complete. There were roughly

8-10 guiding questions that students had to answer as well as finding pictures,

resources, and then they had to write (or print, cut, and glue) their information onto the

poster paper. I deemed this to be too large of a task for a single student to complete, but

I still wanted them to complete the research. The slideshow option allowed this student

to have a place to create a presentation for the class that would still highlight the
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importance of their country, meet the learning goal (LG2), and allow them to show their

classmates their hard work.

This worked extremely well for this student as they were able to complete the

assignment within the time frame given and they still were able to give a brief

presentation on their country. I also adopted this to be the makeup assignment for

students that had missed class and needed to complete the assignment. While I still

gave students the option to create a poster, they also were given the choice to just

create a slideshow that still met all of the standards within the rubric.
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Analysis of Student Learning

Table 6, Analysis of Assessment Data for LG1(above)

Table 7, Analysis of Assessment Date for LG2 (above)

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Students in each of the 3 classes took the pre and post assessments with the

same questions on Monday and then again on Friday at the conclusion of the mini unit.

LG1 was assessed through the thumbs up, down, and middle assessment strategy as

well as through their submitted work and class discussion. Shown in Table 5 and 6,

there was an increase in understanding from the pre-assessment to the post-

assessment. This trend was also evident throughout the 2 days of discussion and

lecture that we had revolving around LG1.

The quick write activity assessed LG2, asking students to write every country that

they knew had played a role in World War 1. In table 6 we can see a growth trend

evident across all classes, with no classes only able to list 1-5 by the post-assessment.

Notice that Period 3 had the highest score in the 10-20+, but still managed to have an

increase in this category as well. The growth and understanding for LG2 was extremely

evident in students' presentations. Students were knowledgeable and concise with their

information and able to give a fantastic overview of their countries.

While these trends and tables highlight the growth of classes as a whole, I saw

an exponential increase in students who chronically turn in sub-par work or are often

disengaged from the content and coursework. I chose to highlight this group of students

because they are the most important in my eyes. A teacher's success should be judged

by the students that don’t want to complete the course work and don’t believe that

school is important to them. In table 8, I show the increase among my top 10 students

compared to the increase from my bottom 10 students in regards to LG2.

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Table 8, Pre and Post for LG2 (Top 10 vs. Bottom 10)

As shown in this graph, my top 10 students had less room to grow, but they were

still able to show an increase in countries listed from the starting benchmark. My bottom

10 students had far more room for growth with almost double the amount of students

that fell into the 1-5 countries category. This shows that not only was I able to engage

my top students, but I was able to engage with my bottom students as well. Table 8

highlights the growth of this sub-group of students towards reaching LG2.

Prior to student presentations, I asked all students to put away their phones and

chromebooks, outline good audience member etiquette, and told them that being a

good audience member would count towards their own presentation grade. I chose to

do this because most of my disengaged students spend the majority of their time on

their phone or chromebook not paying attention in class. I knew that this strategy would

negate this aspect and allow them to focus on the presentations of their peers. My

bottom 10 students were able to focus during the presentations and retain the

information, as shown in the table above.

While it is important to identify trends among classes and subgroups of students,

it is also important to identify progress made by individual students as well. I chose

student A and student B because they are on two ends of the spectrum. Student A has
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a 98% in the class, turns in work on time, and is constantly engaged in the lesson and

content. Student B currently has a 53% in the class, is chronically absent, disengaged

from the content, and it is akin to pulling teeth to have student B turn in work. I chose

these two students because they are complete opposites, and yet they are in the same

class. I wanted to understand how I can engage my top students, while still having the

content be accessible and appropriate for my bottom students.

In both pre-assessments, student A was in the top percentile for their class. For

the first pre-assessment (related to LG1) they gave a thumbs up and were able to

explain the acronym M.A.I.N.. Due to this, there was not much room for growth with the

post-assessment besides being able to highlight what each letter stood for and the

significance of each word. Student A dove into the readings and quickly had their

portion of the research document completed and began preparing for their part of the

discussion, as well as helping their table mates finish up their respective parts.

Student B was a hard thumbs down on the pre-assessment for LG1, and quickly

began to disengage from the content. I could see that this student was struggling with

the concept of M.A.I.N. and the associated assignment. To combat this, I printed off a

paper copy of their document and sat down to help them. I assisted student B in finding

the parts of the document that would help them answer the questions and prepare for

their part of the discussion. After doing this, student B was able to give a brief

explanation of their topic (Militarism), to the class. Student B also gave a thumbs in the

middle for the post-assessment, showing that they were more comfortable than when

they started, but still not where I (or they) wanted them to be.
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For LG2, Student A fell into the 6-10 range of countries while Student B was in

the 1-5 range. I paired Student A with Student B to complete the poster project to try

and help Student B with their understanding and to have them meet LG2. I knew that I

would need to provide ample support to Student B but I wanted to see how they would

react in a new group setting with someone that predominantly completes exemplary

work. Student A took charge and immediately began helping Student B with finding info

and resources they could use on their poster. I stopped by the group a few times to

check in on progress being made and Student B would barely look up from their

readings to answer me (in a good way). Following the presentations and the

post-assessment quick write, Student A and B were both able to reach the 10-20+

category and highlight that they had met (and exceeded) LG2.
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Reflection and Self-Evaluation

The learning goal that students were most successful in was LG2. I would argue

there are two main reasons for the success of my students meeting LG2. The first

reason being that this is a far easier concept to grasp as opposed to LG1. LG2 was to

have students understand the countries that played a role in World War 1 while LG1

asked students to understand an abstract concept about the causes that led to World

War 1 (both directly and indirectly). I would argue that because LG2 is a more cut and

dry or simplistic learning goal (that is not to assert it is less important), that my students

were able to understand this topic far easier.

The second reasoning behind this falls to my own teaching strategies. For this

assignment I allowed students to select their topic and I highlighted the importance of

being a good audience member. The first point, allowing students to pick their topic,

allowed students to pick something that they were interested in. I think this is paramount

in the classroom, allowing students the autonomy to choose their topics fosters their

engagement and desire to learn about the topic. The second strategy I used negated a

lot of the distractions that are prevalent in the classroom. Telling students that there will

be no phones or chromebooks out during their classmates' presentations allowed them

to focus solely on the information being delivered.

The learning goal that my students struggled the most with would be LG1.

I believe my students struggled with this for two reasons, one being tied to my teaching

practice. The first reason I believe that my students struggled more with reaching LG1

was because this topic is very abstract. The idea of M.A.I.N. is that there are indirect

and direct causes that led to World War 1 and M.A.I.N. looks at the indirect causes. This
28 Teacher Work Sample

idea that things could be happening 10-20 years in the past would lead us to World War

1 was very hard for my students to understand.

The second reason is due to my teaching strategy. I decided that I would have a

student lead discussion over the topics of M.A.I.N. with little structuring. I think if I had

created a structured discussion plan and tweaked the assignment students would have

been able to reach LG1 far easier than they did. I also think that if I had required phones

and chromebooks away then students would have had less distractions while their

peers were talking.

The TWS has been an eye opening experience, and one that I doubt I will ever

forget. It set the stage for my teaching practice and forced me to take a deep dive into

my pedagogy, strategies, and effectiveness. Throughout this process I have created two

professional learning goals for myself. The first goal that emerged to me is allowing

students the opportunity to take a driver's seat on their education. I want to allow

students some autonomy in what they study whether it be through assignments or

lectures. To reach this goal, I will have a drop box (both online and physical) for

students to submit ideas of topics they would like to look at in the future. This will allow

me to learn what is interesting to students and begin planning on how I could implement

this into my classroom, while still meeting district and state standards.

My second professional learning goal is one that has been with me all year. I

want to be better at classroom management. Throughout the year I have struggled in

classroom management as a whole. Now that is not to say that my classroom is the wild

west and there are chairs flying across the room, but there have been times where I

have lost a handle and I don’t yet have the experience and tools to rain things back in.
29 Teacher Work Sample

My plan is to begin researching proven techniques and strategies that other teachers

have utilized and implement them into my classroom. I plan on having a trial period for

each one, roughly a week or two perhaps, to see if I can find what works best for me

and my students throughout my classes.

30 Teacher Work Sample

References and Credits

Kenai Central High School Profile. (n.d.).

[Link]

Kenai, AK. Data USA. (n.d.). [Link]

Alaska History Standards. Alaska Department of Education and Early Development.

(n.d.) [Link]

Social Studies Curriculum. Kenai Peninsula Borough School District.

(n.d.)

[Link]

-[Link]