Alicia Hanson

EDSC 591

Collaborative Standards Map Personal Reflection

In the course of completing this standards map, our group identified six

major themes that ran across The California Standards for the Teaching Profession

(CSTPs), the Five Core Propositions of the NBPTS, and the National Board Standards

for History/Social Studies. The six major themes they all share deal with content

knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, learning environment, student assessment,

student learning, and reflection/professional growth.

Fittingly, they all echo and reinforce each other’s themes in regards to what

makes expert teaching practice; the main difference is the depth and focus of

explanation. For example, the Five Core Propositions are more succinct in detailing

what exactly each proposition entails and it’s almost like a quick reference guideline

for teachers to always keep in mind and follow, like the Hippocratic Oath for

doctors. The CSTPs are much more detailed and in depth in listing and explaining

the sub-standards within the main standards. The same is true for the National

Board Standards for History/Social Studies, they are much more detailed and, in

addition, specifically focused on what makes expert practice Social Studies.

While completing this map, nothing really surprised me in terms of what I

was expecting the standards to be. In module one, I drew a comparison between the

Five Core Propositions and the Teacher Performance Assessments (TPAs) that we

 

had to complete as student teachers. The TPAs focused heavily on pedagogical

knowledge, learning environment, student assessment, monitoring student learning,

and personal reflection. After completing the TPAs, those major themes of excellent

teaching practice were burned into my memory, so reading the Five Core

Propositions, the CSTPs, and the National Board Standards for History were not new

or surprising. I now have a greater understanding of where the TPA standards came

from and what they were based upon.

Reading and connecting these standards hasn’t changed the way I think

about teaching or learning, if anything it just further reinforced what the TPAs had

already etched in my mind, as I mentioned before. Interestingly, though, studying

and connecting these themes and standards has made it easier for me to recognize

when they’re being used in other books and articles I’m reading for our EDSC 504

class. We’ve read several chapters in our textbooks, Solomon and Schrum (2014)

and Gura (2014), that make mention of the major themes of student assessment,

reflection, student learning, pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, and

learning environment.

Overall, this assignment was a good way for us to visually and clearly see the

connections and similarities between the CSTPs, the Five Core Propositions, and the

National Board Standards for History. It led to good discussions and collaboration

between my group members and me, and I believe it helped us in our own

professional growth and reflection.

Link to our collaborative standards map: http://popplet.com/app/#/2041114