TPA lesson plan response

We have been working with the TPA documents for a while now. I have, of course, things that I love and loathe about the format. In the spirit of positivity, let me talk about my favorite parts of the TPA.

Favorite aspects

Differentiated instruction

The section of differentiated instruction is pretty much how I actually learn what differentiated instruction means. In 309, Dr. Phillips mention it a lot but never addressed things like how do we differentiate, what types of issues need to be addressed, how does this big idea impact teaching strategies. The TPA gives specific things to consider: who has IEP or other accommodations, how have different learning styles been addressed, which students will need extra attention? These questions are helpful.

Student voice

I think my original vision of teacher was me lecturing while students listened. But I think student voice is very important because students learn peers and need to feel empowered. It is important to remember the students’ role in learning.

Academic content standards:

I like that the TPA encourages us to be standards based because it makes us accountable as teacher. I want my students to learn something other than how awesome I am, so standards are there to make sure I am working towards teaching them to do something. Hopefully with the common core, students from different schools and backgrounds will have equitable educational opportunities.

Specific requirements/ expectations

Every teacher has told me different things to emphasize. Sometimes the same teacher has told me to different things in the course of a week. I understand I am supposed to answer the list of billions of questions, but it just seems a bit subjective. At what point can I say that question is sufficiently answered? Do I just decide and hope Pearson agrees with me at the end of my fateful graduation project?   

Redundancy

I think that half of the TPA can be condensed. The questions get repetitive and the document is too long. I mean really, you can’t pull out a seven page (at minimum) document in the middle of a lesson and look at it. It is too busy.

Academic standards, content objectives, and Academic language should all be one section in my opinion. If we are really basing our content objectives of the standards, they should be in the same section. It should be here is the standard, here is the corresponding objective, and here are the academic language terms necessary to reach the standard. Instead there are three separate sections and they want you to repeat what you’ve already written to show how these things are related.                                                     

In the future

I think I plan on writing two documents as I student teach. I will write out the TPA because it’s required and I’ve heard Professor Agriss explain several times now that the reflection is worthwhile. And I agree with it, although my inner lazy student would rather take a nap, I actually agree. I think I will actually use a summary sheet of the TPA to discuss lesson plans with my cooperating teacher and for direct planning.