Headly, Erin 4/28/13 ENDR 558/2 Reflection Paper This course has been extremely valuable to my practice.

I began the semester with some practical knowledge about ESOL strategies from previous courses. Though I was in a bilingual classroom for my practicum, being there two days a week for two months did not give me much time to implement those strategies in my classroom. My understanding of scaffolding and differentiation for ELLs was much more abstract and fragmented. In the past few months, however, I feel that my knowledge has grown significantly as a result of learning about the SIOP model and having time to use it in my teaching. At the very beginning of the course, we were assigned to conduct a SIOP observation of our mentor teacher using the observation protocol in our textbook. That assignment was very useful to me because it not only helped me see my mentor through a more critical lens, but also helped me establish my own goals for the semester; I had my very own checklist for what I needed to accomplish. At first, I felt like I was just going through the motions, trying to adapt to a new school community and familiarize myself with my mentor's teaching style. At that point, I was especially appreciative of the forum discussions. It was initially intimidating to be in a group of people I wasn't very familiar or close with, but in my first month or so of adjustment to middle school, it was valuable to be discussing strategies with candidates who had more experience at that level. Additionally, I found that even just within my small English subject area group, everyone would get something different from our weekly readings. Reading their responses to the text, as well as their ideas for implementing certain strategies into their own classrooms, helped me get to the point where I was no longer just going through the motions or trying to keep my head above water; I quickly became more intentional in my use of the SIOP model. When it came time to write our lesson drafts for the critical assessment, I did not feel quite ready to be planning an entire SIOP lesson on my own, let alone five. However, using my textbook and

my mentor's lessons for ideas and support, I was able to come up with all five. Though these lessons were not what I ultimately submitted for the assignment, the process of creating and wrestling with them forced me to think more about the practical implementation of theories I'd learned in the previous semester, particularly about creating objectives that were appropriate for different ESOL levels. I gained a new appreciation for the decisions my mentor teacher made in her lessons, but also began to question those decisions as we planned our first unit together. I think it is evident in those lessons, which I submitted for the critical assessment, that we both pushed each other to implement strategies that we thought would be most beneficial to our students. My mentor gave me more input initially, but then encouraged me to try my own ideas, saying, Unless I know you will bomb, I'll let you try anything. I can learn from you too! I learn best by seeing and doing, so that was very helpful to the development of my practice. Experiences outside this course have also factored into my understanding of the SIOP model and ESOL instruction in general. The school where I am student teaching has just adopted a SIOP lesson plan format that all teachers are required to use. While my mentor teacher is an expert in SIOP and was already using that format, the majority of teachers were not. As a result, the language program coordinator has organized several professional development sessions, some for the entire staff, some just for the language arts faculty. I already had all the resources she was passing out to teachers; they were all from the textbook! It was great to have these workshops as supplements to what I was already learning in the course. In our most recent meeting, we filled out the observation protocol with plus or minus signs to indicate what we were already doing well or what we needed to improve. I was surprised to be able to put more plus signs than minus signs. Some teachers even asked me for help in clarifying certain concepts, or were left with the same questions that I had. In that moment I realized how truly valuable this course has been to me. I have taken for granted that all teachers are using this model, but there are teachers with years of experience who have never heard of it. I am grateful that I got the chance to learn about it and use it before even graduating from the MAT program. I've come to

see, especially after writing my work sample, that the SIOP model is truly reflective of best practices.