Scott+McAnally+-+Professional+Growth+Plan

__Focus Item #1 - Content Knowledge __ (A) Developing a rich content area knowledge is essential for teachers to ensure that students are learning more than just skills in the classroom. The content in a social studies class is the source of knowledge that allows students to discover the past, interpret the present, and change the future. For effective and meaningful learning to occur, educators need to continually refine and improve their content knowledge in order to make it relatable to the evolving students in our classrooms. Graduating with a wealth of social studies content knowledge passed on by teachers, students become better informed citizens of our society.

(B) Throughout my college education I have gained a wealth of knowledge about specific topics in history. The research skills I have learned from these courses have helped me grow as a historian and as an educated member of our society. Translating the knowledge I have acquired into teachable lessons is a skill I would like to further develop. By improving my grade level content area knowledge I will be able to distill historical topics for middle school and high school learners. Additionally, having a broader knowledge base will allow me to adapt the scope of my courses to meet the needs of my students.

(C) In order to improve this area of my teaching I will consult a number of different books that focus specifically on teaching history. I am currently reading //Lies My Teacher Told Me// by James Loewen and have already learned a great deal from his critical observations of history textbooks. The concept of the null curriculum is fascinating to me and I would like to grow my content knowledge by researching more of the topics that "ought" to be taught in history classrooms. Additionally, I will collaborate with my classmates to learn about the content knowledge they feel will be valuable to their own social studies classrooms.

__Focus Item #2 - Curriculum Development __ (A) Creating well thought out lesson plans and activities helps facilitate classroom learning. My decreasing "down time" and increasing the efficient use of classroom time, teachers are better prepared to get the most out of their lessons. Creating detailed outlines of unit plans allows teachers to justify their coursework to school administrators and parents. Additionally, preparedness in lesson planning allows for better communication with substitute teachers when needed.

(B) Of all the areas of professional growth, curriculum development is perhaps the most foreign to me because it is a specific skill set that is acquired through necessity in the teaching profession. While I have had practice developing lesson plans during my teacher preparation program, assembling effective activities to assist students in retaining content knowledge continues to be an area of potential growth. I would like to focus specifically on crafting activities to help students understand particularly challenging topics, such as the Nazi perspective of WWII or American colonial relations with the Native Americans.

(C) To improve my approach to curriculum development I will consult various trade magazines and collect examples from my mentor teachers. //Social Education//, a publication put out by the National Council for Social Studies, provides a handful of effective teacher-produced lesson plans and activities in each issue. Additionally, I will be sure to flesh out the lesson writing activities in my TE 407/408 courses so that I can actually use them when I become a teacher. This includes finding and adding applicable HSCE annotations as well as supplemental materials for each lesson.

__Focus Item #3 - Technological Facility __ (A) In our world of increasing interconnectedness it is becoming vital for educators to have a high technological facility in order to take advantage of the many exciting tools becoming available to help our students learn. Specifically in the social studies subject area, access to primary source documents electronically has opened the doors to an entirely new range of materials teachers can utilize to craft a well rounded curriculum. Teachers who do not take advantage of the technology available today run the risk of becoming "disconnected" from their students. Utilizing social media services for educational purposes allows teachers to work with their students in exciting new ways.

(B) To be truthful, my technological facility outside the field of education is actually quite high. I have a fairly extensive knowledge of computer hardware and software and am familiar with Microsoft and Apple operating platforms. However, the more educational web features I discover, the more I feel I need to learn about the possibilities of using technology in the classroom. From Blackboard to Moodle, blogs, wikis, twitter, the options for implementation into classrooms and activities seem endless. There have also been a number of novel improvements to traditional teaching tools such as Smart Boards and clickers. I would like to grow my knowledge of the various pieces of educational technology.

(C) To better understand the technological services that available to teachers and students I will research products online and sample them if possible. I will also read discussion forums where teachers share their thoughts on the various products on the market and how they have used them in their classrooms. Additionally, I will consult with my mentor teachers about the pieces of technology they find useful. To assess my improvement in this area, I will continue to update my TE 407/408 wiki with links to various educational technologies and how I would like to use them in my future classroom.