I believe that I meet this standard as I always make it a goal to provide a variety of activities using a variety of resources with the objective of meeting students at their level. I regularly revise and change lessons if I find mistakes or something doesn't have the impact our outcome that I expected and I use these revisions year to year to improve my instruction and make more coherent and effective courses.
I am in a unique position as a Middle School teacher in a small school in that nobody else teaches the same courses that I do. Because of this, collaboration around my planning can be difficult but I try to collaborate with colleagues where possible on the big picture ideas such as projects, resources, methods, assessment strategies, etc. These informal conversations occur on a weekly basis and create a platform for many great ideas and have led me to experiment with some new things in my classes and share ideas that I have that could help my colleagues as well.
At the end of each year, students at ASB give teacher feedback and this helps me to understand areas where I am being successful and areas where I need to improve to meet my students' needs. Below are some sample quotes from the 2010-11 school year around the topics of planning, engagements, and learning in my classes.
"He makes us use DyKnow which is a great tool to harness my learning. He lets us take retakes on the tests and quizzes"
"He draws diagrams on the board and tries different ways to explain if some people can't understand it. He let's people work in groups."
"Sometimes Mr.Roberts make some games, which all class can enjoy, and it's really fun."
"He helps us learn by making activities such as cutting a piece a paper and put it on the other side to make a parallelogram."
"He wants us to work in groups while working on DyKnow. He puts us in to fair groups most of the time."
"Mr.Roberts teaches us things that we know we will need, not stuff that we will forget about. This makes the learning more meaningful to all of us."
"He uses daily life examples which helps me alot. I sometimes wonder WHY we have to learn math even though I DO know. But because of the examples, I learn quickly and it helps me."
"Sometimes in math class we have all these fun activities. These activities help me learn better and is also a fun way a learning. We also play these games that can help us understand our unit which is also very enjoyable."
"He also adds projects to our class which makes it fun too."
Along with these comments comes some numerical data where students respond to questions according to a ranking system of 1-5. Below are the results of two questions concerning collaborative learning/groupings and the students perspective on my preparedness and organization as a teacher.
My teacher helps students work together.
My teacher is prepared, well organized and on time for class.