St.

Francis Junior High

December 2016
333 18 St South
Lethbridge, AB
T1J 3E5
(403) 327-3402

September 2016-

Teacher Professional Growth Plan

DeAndra Sullivan
Goal #1: Communication with Parents
Focus on communicating with parents regarding their child and maintaining
and open, positive, informative, and purposeful relationship between parents
and myself.
Strategies
o Send a letter home at the beginning of the school year
introducing myself to parents and students and providing my
contact information and the schools contact information,
relaying that they can contact me at any time for any reason.
o Utilize a variety of communication methods: phone call,
newsletters, email, Google Classroom, PowerSchool, and a
teacher page.
o Briefly interview other teachers within the school to discuss what
strategies they have found to be effective in communicating with
parents
o Follow up with parent communication and address any concerns
or issues
o Communicate with parents about POSITIVE observations during
the semester regarding their child.
o Meet with parents and be open to conversation during Meet the
Teacher night and Parent Teacher Interviews.
o Attend any PD sessions or workshops on parental communication
How I will measure this goal:
o I will keep a journal and reflect on each communication method
and its effectiveness. Keeping a journal will allow for anecdotal
notes about a communication method over a period of time, as
well as how it worked for one family versus another. I will be able
to tell if I have met my goal of effective communication with
parents by measuring and observing their responses to my
communication. All families are different, and some may have
preferences or ease of access to specific measurements.
Timeline
o September: Introductory letters home, Meet the Teacher night,
and email communication. Phone call home mid/end September

and provide students with update on how classes are going so

far.
o October: Update teacher page and keep Google Classroom
updated (this will be ongoing from September-December).
Ongoing: PowerSchool, Google Classroom, Teacher Page
o November: Parent Teacher Interviews and Report Card
communication. Meet with parents at PT Interviews and discuss
their childs progress academically and behaviorally, touch base
on goals and what they have accomplished and what else we will
be doing for the remainder of the semester. Ongoing: teacher
website, Google Classroom, Power School
o December: Update parents via email or PowerSchool on their
childs progress post-report card. Ongoing: PowerSchool, Google
Classroom, Teacher webpage
Related KSAs:
L) The importance of engaging parents, purposefully and meaningfully,
in all aspects of teaching and learning. They know how to develop and
implement strategies that create and enhance partnerships among
teachers, parents and students;

Goal #2: -To expand my knowledge and experience with a variety of

assessment tools and strategies pertaining to project based learning.
Strategies
o Anecdotal notes during project classes to formatively assess
student work during project work time; use of time, productivity,
project chosen, peer relations and collaboration, where they are
at in projects class-to-class
o Conference and check-ins with students during projects to
formative assess where they are at in each project, what they
need to continue to work on, address any issues or struggles,
and to ensure they are on the right track with each project.
Conferences will happen regularly for each project with a sign up
sheet on the board. I will also make a list of priority conferences
to ensure student success.
o I will provide checklists for students during each project to assist
them in staying on track, being productive and efficient during
work time, and to encourage autonomy and independence in the
classroom.
o Goal setting & Reflection: Students will set goals for their
learning early in the semester, along with strategies, and near
the end of the semester reflect on how well they did. Students
will also choose projects early and then reflect on how well the
project went for them, what challenged them and how they feel
they did working towards a new project challenge.

o Learning Styles Quiz: this functions as a pre-assessment for both

the students and myself and provides us with invaluable
information regarding their learning preferences and how they
feel they learn best. With this information and reflection,
students have more knowledge about their learning styles and
habits and can choose projects that they feel are the best fit for
them. For some students they may choose to work in groups or
alone, or choose a writing, creating, or representing project.
o Peer/Self Checklist: Students will peer edit and have a checklist
to follow while reviewing their classmates work. Students will
conference with each other and discuss and make notes.
o Rubrics: Projects will be assessed summatively according to a
rubric that has been created with my colleagues and myself.
Students will be given the rubric early on in the project period
and we will discuss exceptional and adequate work with
exemplars so that students know what is expected and how they
will be graded. This will be done as transparent as possible.
o Discuss with other teachers in the school their preferred ways of
assessing projects and ways to document project based
assessment
o Employing Project Based Learning resource book and
implementing effective strategies it discusses that I feel will work
for my students; look at the pros and cons of each suggested
assessment method and determine whether they will fit/are
doable for my classroom and our projects.
o Attend any PD sessions or conferences on project based
learning/assessment

How I will measure this goal:

o Exit Slips: Students will provide me with exit slips on how
different types of assessment worked for them. Example: Did
conferencing help you with your project? Did it help you know
what you needed to work on? Did the checklist help guide your
project? It is important to hear from the students because they
are the ones working on the projects and whether they found it
helpful.
o Reflection journal: I will reflect on each assessment method and
how effective it was regarding project based assessment. I will
reflect on each method and whether it worked effectively or not
to assess a students project. I will make notes on which
assessments worked best and which ones could have worked
better, as well as which ones were the most time-consuming or
least helpful for the students.
o

Timeline
o Projects will primarily occur in late October-End of November. At
the beginning of this period students will establish project goals
and narrow down their project choices. There will be conferences
with each student for every project, with an emphasis on
meeting the high priority conference students first in each
conferencing period.
o Smaller projects will occur in September that will provide me with
information on what assessment strategies work well for the
students (conferences/checklists/quick check-ins/peer editing
o September: Learning Styles Quiz
o Late September: students will begin to choose their first project
based on what interests them and on their learning style, they
will reflect on the project after.
o Ongoing: conferences, anecdotal notes, checklists
Related KSA
K) The purposes of student assessment. They know how to assess the
range of learning objectives by selecting and developing a variety of
classroom and large scale assessment techniques and instruments.
They know how to analyse the results of classroom and large scale
assessment instruments including provincial assessment instruments,
and how to use the results for the ultimate benefit of students;