Description of the Domain F and the TPEs
“Developing as a Professional Educator” is the Domain under consideration that consists of the two TPE tasks (12 and 13). This Domain helps to realize what can make a good educator when people are ready to educate and explain what is expected from students, and why some people may teach students and some people cannot understand the peculiarities of a learning process. It helps to learn that candidates should take certain responsibilities for student academic outcomes and the development of their abilities in regards to the expectations. As it has been already mentioned, there are the two TPEs within the frames of the chosen Domain: “Professional, Legal, and Ethical Obligations” (TPE 12) and “Professional Growth” (TPE 13) (Commission on Teacher Credentialing 2013 A-15).
TPE 12 is the part of the Domain that teaches candidates to consider important values and norms according to which students may regard the questions of racism, intolerance, truth, etc. School policies are also mentioned through this Domain’s TPE.
TPE 13 is all about professional growth and the possibility to improve the chosen teaching practices and other crucial abilities. With the help of reflections and feedbacks, teachers may develop different plans and improve their skills. Sometimes, teachers require their students’ help, and this domain shows how helpful students can be for their educators.
Application of the Domain F across all TPEs
TPE 13 may be implemented with the Domain through a variety of teaching strategies offered by different experts. Each teacher is free to choose the most appropriate strategy regarding students’ needs and expectations. In this Domain, it is possible to use the strategy of asking questions and providing students with time to give the necessary answer. Lemov offers the technique named “Wait Time” that provides students with the necessary portion of time to analyze a question and give an answer (236). The chosen strategy may also touch upon TPE 12 according to which teachers have to follow several professional obligations and protect various students’ interests. In case students are provided with time, they are protected and supported by their teachers. It is the main task that has to be accomplished. In other words, teachers meet all students’ needs from a purely ethical point of view.
Personal Views on the Domain and the TPEs
The educational importance of the Domain across the included TPEs is high indeed. Students want to cooperate with teachers, who can grow professionally, increase their potential, and pay attention to their social, legal, and ethical obligations. Parents have the same priorities in regards to the teachers, who work with their children. Still, also, parents understand how teachers must follow some legal norms and what kind of punishment may be used.
This is why the Domain F with its both TPEs cannot be neglected by teachers as well as by parents: candidates should know what they have to do, and parents should know how it is possible to use law in education and protect their children in cases of emergency. Teachers need to use strategies for their professional growth to be able to sustain student’s enthusiasm and develop the necessary skills in an education process (Churchill, Mulholland, and Cepello 181).
Artifact 1 and the Domain
The first artifact chosen for Domain F is the blog post about the innovative methods that can be used by high school educators. The author of this post admits that it is a real challenge to define the most effective methods for teaching students and offers to use such ideas as visualization, technological tools, and active learning as the new methods for consideration (“Three Innovative Methods of Teaching” par. 2). This artifact introduces visualization as a possibility for students to learn, recall, and think over an issue critically, classroom technologies as a chance to use more in a learning process, and active learning as a good opportunity to encourage students to think and analyze in various ways.
This post is chosen regarding the TPEs because it not only helps teachers to promote their professional growth and follow their obligations. It also helps students become better educators.
Though this artifact does not have much information about the legal or ethical obligations of teachers, it contains interesting facts about the professionalism teachers should demonstrate. They have to develop new approaches, methods, and ideas on how to engage students in education, communication, and a thinking process. Gifted students may be less influenced by the offered methods, but the students with special needs may benefit a lot from the ideas mentioned in the chosen artifact.
In general, the artifact under consideration is a good example of how the Domain and its TPE may influence a career of teaching and educators’ possibilities to be developed and improved in regards to the expectations settled.
Artifact 2 and the Domain
The second artifact is a Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach within the frames of which students can discuss some real-life problems and challenges they face and gain new knowledge using and improving their skills. The chosen Project-Based Learning artifact comes from the Buck Institute, where educators try to involve students and parents in the development of new projects and learn how to implement it but not to design it. In this project, students are required to develop their narrative fiction collections, where they share their family stories, their experience, and their memories that fulfill their lives (Scherer par.1). To develop such projects, students are provided with the questions that can help them to develop powerful projects and time to give the answers considering their families’ histories as it is presupposed by TPE 13 of the Domain F.
This artifact is chosen because of two main reasons. On the one hand, it shows how teachers may involve parents and students in the same activity and improve their professionalism. On the other hand, teachers learn how to combine different aspects of their students’ lives and how to use the material gathered during the education process.
Such activities like the development of the Project-Based Learning approach help to find as many reflections and feedbacks on educators’ work as possible. This is why it is justified to use the artifact to learn better the peculiarities of the implementation of the Domain F in learning. It is not only helpful but also interesting to observe how parents, students, and teachers can cooperate and use the outcomes of the activities in their purposes: students learn better their families’ histories and develop their skills, parents observe the progress of their children, and teachers promote their professional growth.
Works Cited
Churchill, Lisa, R., Mulholland, Rita, and Cepello, Michelle, R. A Practical Guide for Special Education Professionals, Boston, MA: Pearson, 2007. Print.
Commission on Teacher Credentialing 2013, California Teaching Performance Expectations. PDF file. Web.
Lemov, Doug. Teach Like a Champion 2.0.: 62 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2014. Print.
Scherer, Randy. “Back in the Day.” Buck Institute for Education 22 April 2014. PBLU. Web.
“Three Innovative Methods of Teaching for High School Educators.” Concordia Online Education 4 February 2013. COE. Web.