Laura Naumanns Professional Growth Plan

This year, I have faced many challenges in learning to teach and I addressed those
challenges in specific ways to improve my teaching.
Unit Planning
Throughout this school year, I was able to plan and create numerous unit plans. I was able to
base majority of these units off of lessons, and pacing my mentor has used in previous years.
I found difficulty in the planning and implementation of a new unit to the curriculum, that my
mentor has not taught before. The unit on uni-variate data, and statistics was something new to
the class, and also was something that I was not very familiar with. I had to plan, and create the
lessons, and decide on the pacing for the material with no previous examples. This was a difficult
task to do as an intern. I was able to overcome this challenge by finding multiple resources to use
in order to learn, and create this unit. This enabled me to see the benefits of researching topics,
and problems from various math texts, in order to create lessons, and activities that align with
other textbooks teaching of Algebra II. Another resource I was able to find were the unit plans,
and pacing charts on the Oakland County Schools website. These units were aligned with the
common core, and were a good resource to use in order to plan this statistics unit. While this unit
was the hardest to plan because of the lack of previous material from my mentor, this is how
planning will happen in my first few years of teaching. This unit forced me to find other
resources to aid in planning, and allowed me to discover ways to make lesson and unit planning
easier, while still aligning with the Common Core State Standards.
Differentiating Instruction
A challenge I have faced throughout this year was creating lessons that were both accessible, and
challenging to all my students. I found difficulty in creating activities, which kept majority of
students engaged, and actively learning. Differentiating instruction, to me, involves keeping all
students challenged throughout the lesson. It is important that topics are not too easy or too
hard. There needs to be enough work to keep students busy, but also not enough that students
are overwhelmed. This was very hard for me to do during my internship. I had students who
were able to finish activities very quickly, and then I had some students who needed the extra
time. Not only did I have differentiation based on ability level, but also on how students learned
the material the best. Some students succeeded with a very structured class, of notes, and
examples, while others needed more open ended activities, and chances to discover
mathematical topics. It is a challenging task to differentiate a class based on all these abilities,
and types of learners. I found that changing up the way I present lessons was something that
helped keep the different learners attention, If I did written notes one class, I would try to change
up the format of my presentation the next. Such as using a power point presentation, that students
could interact with using the smart board projector. Also I would make sure to have more
challenging problems, or extra work for students who needed it ready. If a student was able to
finish the assignment quickly, I was able to challenge that thinking with other problems, or
activities. The variety of ability levels, and types of learners is something that was very
challenging to address throughout my internship year, but is something that will always be

present in classrooms. I am glad I was able to experience this now, in order to reflect on ways to
differentiate my classroom in the future.
Designing and Implementing Group Work
It is very important in a mathematics classroom for students to have an opportunity to discuss
and explore topics with their classmates. Implementing group work is something that was
focused on during my MSU coursework both my senior year, and internship year. I found it
challenging to take what I learned at MSU about group work, and complex instruction, and
implement that in my high school classroom. I had difficulty-creating group worthy tasks, and
holding all students accountable for these tasks. Every math task is not something that is group
worthy, and creating tasks that students need to work together to solve, and finish is something
that I want to improve upon. I also found it difficult to keep students actively learning within
their group. Some groups did not work well together. Some things I did to improve this during
the school year, was adjust groups based on ability level, and also on students personality to an
extent. At the beginning of the year, when I did not know my students as well, I created groups
that did not work well together. Changing these groups, based on my students ability, and also
personality, and social skills helped create more productive group work. Groups need to be
chosen in a way that promotes discussion and active learning. I was able to see an increase in
group participation and individual student participation when I changed the groups, after getting
to know my students better.
I also found it challenging to change my students perspective on group work. At the beginning
of the year I gave my students a three-question survey on their attitude towards group work. I
found that this enabled me to see what students liked, and disliked about working with their
peers. I was then able to address these thoughts, before assigning students to groups. Students
may always have negative experiences towards group work form other classes, but as a teacher I
need to make their experience in my classroom a positive one in order to promote active
discussion and teamwork in the mathematics classroom.

I have identified three areas of growth in my teaching practice that I would like to
continue to work on. Below, I detail those three areas and discuss what activities
and resources I will use to improve my practice in these areas.
Classroom Management
As a beginning teacher, it is going to take a lot of time, and thought to create a successful
classroom management system. In order for a classroom to run efficiently, and effectively, some
type of management system needs to be in place. A big part of classroom management that I
would like to keep improving on is the beginning of class procedure. Having students know
exactly what they are expected to do as they enter your classroom is something that can decrease
the amount of time you spend getting your class ready to start, which then increases the amount
of time students are learning. Implementing a system of bell work, or warm ups for students to
work on, and then making sure there are directions to tell them what to do next is something that
would help you get control of your class before class may even start. Even gaining a couple
minutes a day is significant in the long run of instructional time.
Along with beginning class procedures, having a classroom management style that encourages
students to come together as a class and create rules, and expectations, allows the students to
work together and hold accountability for their actions. These different aspects of classroom
managements will be changed based on classes, and even students. As a beginning teacher it will
take more experience to know what type of classroom management style, and procedures works
for you. Through experience, and also collaborations with my peers, I hope to improve my
classroom management style.
Improving Student Engagement
Creating lessons that are interesting, and engaging to all students is something that can always be
improved upon has a teacher. How you present material, and how you design a lesson is
something that needs to spark interest in students. For example, some lessons in mathematics are
in the format of notes and practice problems. I found at the beginning of the year my students
were not very engaged in the lessons where I was doing this. I found that adding try these
problems, where students get a chance to work on their own, and talk with their peers, is
something that engaged some of my students. Breaking up the notes, with time to work on their
own was something that got some of my students attention. Another aspect of teaching that
helps engage students are the use of manipulatives. Allowing students to physically see
something that is happening mathematically, is something they aids in their learning process.
Both of these techniques have improved engagement in my classroom. Activities performed need
to be exciting, and understandable to students in order to increase the amount of students
engaged in the activities. Researching types of activities, and figuring out which activities work
with individual classes, will help increase student engagement and create a productive
mathematics classroom.

Throughout my education course work at Michigan State, I have performed, and observed many
different types of activities. Some of these include task cards, sequencing cards, and a no talking
activity called Let the Chalk Talk. All these activities improve student engagement, and are a
resource for me to use while designing lessons in the future.
Assessments
Assessments, both formative, and summative are something that I have realized are essential to
implement in my secondary classroom. The use of formative assessment is a tool that is
irreplaceable to teachers. They allow you to see what your students know and dont know. This
allows you to revise lessons on the fly, and helps you understand your students thinking more. I
was able to use exit slips to measure my students learning many times throughout this past
school year. How ever I would like to improve my use of formative assessments during the
lessons, and not just at the end. The use of a thumbs up, thumbs down, or type of ranking system
that allows you to see the confidence your students have on the material all can help you adjust
the lesson as it is happening, instead of after the fact. Different types of formative assessments,
done at different times throughout your lesson can help you adjust your instruction to increase
student learning.
Along with formative assessments, I would like to improve my writing, and designing of
summative assessments, in the form of quizzes, and unit tests. Writing a fair assessment, that
measures what students have learned, but also challenges them, and pushes their thinking is
something that I would like to improve on. This is something that takes practice, and experience.
Writing good assessments is something that I would like to learn more about, and improve upon.