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Running Head: SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT

Signature Assignment

Tayler Flanders

TESP 502

Azusa Pacific University

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Self-Development Plan

Introduction

As a teaching candidate and a student, it is important to reflect on my own learning style

as a way to better understand the mindset I will have going into a classroom. By taking tests to

learn more about my learning as a student, I will better understand what I may say or do to try

and benefit my future students’ learning in the classroom. The ability to acknowledge different

learning styles by adapting and altering teaching methods, to better get across to my students, is

one of my goals as a teacher. Understanding that my best way of learning may not be as affective

for others can start the process of growth for me as a teacher and help me make changes for all

types of learners.

Self-Analysis

To start I began with an assessment to understand my personality, I used the Personality

Type Assessment from personalitytype.com, concluding that I am naturally an “ENJT” or

Extravert, Intuitive, Thinker, and Judger. According to the Personality Type website, this

personality represents between 2-5% of the population in the United States and is characterized

by leadership qualities, organization, more of an outgoing style, and even more detailed oriented.

The second personality assessment I took was the Keirsey Assessment, which says I am a

Guardian. Again, this type relates strongly with leadership abilities, loyalty, and responsibilities.

I would agree that these traits are very representative of myself. I find myself most comfortable

taking charge and taking on numerous responsibilities, as well as being friendly and working

well with others.

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Next, I took a learning style quiz from educationplanner.org, showing a breakdown of my

learning traits. The results showed that I am 5% an auditory learner, 30% visual, and 65% tactile.

Overall, I am a tactile learner, showing the mastery of concepts best when I use “physical

movement” and “hands-on” approaches. The quiz mentions that tactile learners are those that

like to learn by “tak[ing] things apart and put[ting] things together”. Some study techniques for

this type of learner are moving, flashcards, short and frequent study slots, and of course touching

or making. As I have learned, the easiest classes for me to master were those that were shorter

lecture and more laboratory, those with memorable experiments, and those that allowed me to

creatively make study material. This style has made it easier for me to visually picture the

images in my head to fully understand and recall concepts. The second test for learning style was

the Multiple Intelligences and Learning Style Test from Psychology Today, which gave me the

style of interpersonal intelligence. Psychology Today mentions that this type is best when

interacting with others and is often referred to as the “people-person” intelligence. Other

characteristics include ability to work in a team, reading people’s feelings and goals, and often

becoming the leader in a team. This intelligence completely absorbs the ideas of both personality

tests and the previous learning style, combining all of the same characteristics, all of which

accurately define me.

Lastly, I used the Quick Emotional Intelligence Self-Assessment from sdcity.edu,

discovering the way that I handle emotions of myself and others. The scores for this assessment

are as follows: emotional awareness – 29, emotional management – 26, social emotional

awareness – 35, and relationship management – 40. Each of the portions was on a scale from 1-

40, with ranges 25-35 needing some improvement and 35+ not needing improvement but using

to improve other areas. Overall, my emotional awareness and management could use the most
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improvement, which is understandable considering my more openly emotional or sensitive

nature. My relationship management and social emotional awareness were my top scores and

reflect my ability to read people’s feelings and work to maintain healthy relationships.

All five assessments depict aspects of my lifestyle and personality, but also show the

areas that I can definitely improve upon. Moving forward, my areas of improvement will be

dissected to understand the best way for me to make my classrooms more inclusive and effective.

Personal and Professional Development Plan

Beginning with my personal life, I understand that while I am a leader and therefore

strong willed and stubborn, I need to bring awareness to the idea of giving up control sometimes.

It has always been difficult for me to relinquish my organization or control and it can cause me

to get overly worked up or anxious, often playing into the weaker aspects of my emotional

management and awareness. Now that I better understand that these strengths can also become

my weaknesses in situations, I would like to work on letting others be in control and relaxing

into a more “go with the flow” style from time to time. This will help me to strengthen the two

weakened emotional aspects, as well as encouraging others to step into a leadership position and

allowing me to teach them how to manage.

As for my professional development, I see leadership, organization, and outgoing

attitudes as a positive in my ability to lead a classroom and take charge in managing my

classroom. I can also see how this is a downfall because the slight unwillingness to adapt to

changes in schedules or lesson plans could be problematic when students need more time. With

this being said, I plan to continue taking charge of my classroom, but making sure to divvy out

responsibilities to students and working to make sure that the schedule can be adapted to fit

student needs. I also will use this to understand where I can change to better fit their needs.
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Lastly, making sure to keep my emotions from affecting the school setting and becoming more

aware of my mental health to better manage it in the classroom, as to not affect the school day.

Overall, this self-assessment has better prepared me for changes I need to make through

my personal and professional career to help me work with all types of student personalities,

learning styles, and emotional intelligences. Since this is part of my growth, as Leaf (2013)

describes, neuroplasticity allows us to change and adapt our brain, which I will be working on to

improve my teaching methods for my classroom.

Student Development Plan

Student Learning Styles

Learning styles are an important part of lesson plan development to consider different

activities, inclusivity, and effective ways to reach all students. I surveyed a total of five students

from a kindergarten and first grade combo class, consisting of one IEP student, one English

language learning student, and three general education, mainstreamed students. This survey

consisted of five questions, adapted from the Association of Christian Schools International

“Kindergarten Learning Style Survey” (Association of Christian Schools International). The

survey determined different aspects of the students’ learning styles through pictorial

representations. Surveys took between two to five minutes per student and were taken during

individual time in the classroom. An important aspect to consider for this school setting is the

idea of “pods” instead of separate classrooms, which places this class of students in a first and

second grade level pod, with bookshelves to separate different “classrooms”. Kindergarteners in

this setting are expected to behave like their peers and join the other kindergarten classes for

recess, lunch, and physical education.

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After my previous self-evaluation and learning style analysis, I decided to also administer

the adapted survey to myself to insure accuracy and represent results in a more uniform fashion.

My results showed that I am consistently a kinesthetic, visual, and individual learner, which

matches directly to previous results, just in a simpler choice of words. Using these results, I have

graphed them with student results on Table 3 and also in a pie chart pictured in Table 2. These

results will better help me relate to the students as I move forward into analysis and creating

lesson plans.

Student Learning Analysis

Student results were charted individually and together to better represent the arrangement

of learning styles in the classroom. Individual results and analyses, and a group analysis have

been done to better assess the best plan for a lesson.

Of the students, three students show an overall auditory learning style, while the other

two enjoy a visual style. The three auditory learners were student A, student C, and student E, all

kindergarten students, with student A an English language learner and student C with an IEP for

special education. It is important to consider that one student is an English language learner and

one receives special education instruction, so it may be easier to hear English than it is to read it

not only due to a potential language barrier, but the idea that the child may not fully understand

written word yet. This applies for all three students, because of their age group, they may not

understand ideas when written or read individually, but rather follow along with a lesson by

listening closely. In the survey, all three kindergarten age students stated they like to spell site

words out loud, another indicator that it may be easier for them to process at this age.

McCormick and Scherer (2018) discuss the importance of phonemic awareness for kindergarten

and first graders, often by “emphasizing the component sounds of words”, which is done by my
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host teacher by having them sound out words, use sight words, and even physically building

words each day (p. 380). Since this is the beginning of teaching their phonemic awareness, these

students should progress and show improved reading and writing skills as they enter into first

grade this following school year.

The two visual learners, student B and student D, who are both mainstream, first grade

students, prefer to write out vocabulary words and their favorite subject in school is art. Taking

into consideration their age and school level, they have progressed into reading and writing

efficiently, indicating that they now have the opportunity to use written words instead of just

their voices.

Overall, all five students prefer a quiet work environment and to work with partners or

groups, which was only partially surprising. With students in the “pod” setting mentioned earlier,

it is interesting that all of the students prefer quiet environments. The classroom for these

students is never fully quiet, as it may be in a traditional classroom, due to other classes

interacting throughout the day. After discussion and sharing the results with my host teacher, we

decided that this may be due to the idea of keeping quiet being ingrained into their minds

throughout the school year, although they may not actually get complete silence. What was

consistent with their environment was their uniform response about group work. Since they are
TABLE 1: Individual
used to having space to work with other classes
Student LearningandStyles
tables, they are used to talking to their

neighbors during classwork and independent work.

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TABLE 2: My Learning
Styles
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TABLE 3: Collective Class Learning Styles

Having a better understanding that these students do not work efficiently in an individual,

kinesthetic environment will further help me develop a lesson plan that fits their needs. Since I

work best by myself and hands-on, and it is not their preferred style, understanding that putting

together activities in which they will be able to work together and that include more visuals and

auditory pieces will make my lesson more effective. Overall, working to better communicate

visually and auditorily will help me teach this lesson and will provide me with understanding for

my future students. Potentially adding video representations, hands-on activities in groups,

letting them write and even color could be ideas worth adding to reflect their learning styles.

Lesson Plan

Academic Content Standard/s: Standard 1: Essential Concepts

(California Curriculum Frameworks/Common
Core Standards) 1.2.N Identify a variety of healthy snacks.

(Kindergarten Nutrition & Fitness)

Lesson Objectives: (Write in clear, specific, Students will be able to differentiate between popular
measurable terms what students will be able to healthy & non-healthy snacks.
do/demonstrate by the end of your lesson.) Students will be able to identify healthy snack choices at
school.
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Students will be able to build their own healthy yogurt
parfait in class.
Assessment (This is what students will do to Students will show mastery of the topic by doing a sorting
demonstrate mastery and to what extent - activity/project with pictures of healthy and unhealthy
Describe how you will assess all students. snacks that they enjoy most. This assessment will be
learning. Include diagnostic, formative, and/or
summative assessment tools. Tools may include,
through an activity where they will use chrome books to
rubrics, tests created in a document or a variety print off pictures of their favorite snack foods and will
of other diagnostic tools.) sort them in a chart. This will diagnose where students
have individual difficulties with the subject matter, as well
as the class. The project will be a summative type of
assessment, given after the lesson is over, but will
incorporate what the individual students learned from it.
(See Attached Document “How do you snack?” and
Rubric)
Lesson Summary: (State the purpose of the The purpose of this lesson is to help students identify
lesson. Describe how this lesson fits into the different healthy snack options at home and school,
general context of what you're teaching is this differentiating their own snack choices as healthy or less
the first lesson in a unit, in the middle or at the
end of a unit).)
healthy by the end of the lesson. Students will then get the
opportunity to make healthy yogurt parfaits as a class.
This lesson will be at the beginning of the unit,
introducing the concept of healthy vs unhealthy foods, but
later being built on with family, meals, breakfast, etc.
Time Allotment and Context: This lesson will take about 50 minutes to complete. For
approximate length lesson will take best results, this should end right before snack time to let
students put this into action and to eat their new snack
while they play.
5 minutes: healthy foods video -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykTR0uFGwE0
10 minutes: What is healthy? What is not healthy?
Discuss as a class
5 minutes: Healthy foods vs unhealthy foods slide show as
a class
20 minutes: “How do you snack?” project/activity
10 minutes: Make a healthy snack! (Yogurt Parfaits as a
class)
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1. Anticipatory Set/Engagement (5 minutes) To begin the lesson, I will be using the video given
(How will you capture students’ below to introduce the idea of being hungry and eating snacks.
attention and focus learning for All of the cartoon monsters in the video are eating fruits as
healthy snacks, so we will be able to refer to those snacks as
the lesson?)
healthy and talk about them as a group after. This activity will
attract student attention, gathering them at the center rug to
begin the lesson. Students will be sitting in the front of the
classroom to watch the video on the projector.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykTR0uFGwE0
2. Direct Instruction (Describe Teacher Activities:
how you will explain each new 1. Play video for students. (5 minutes)
concept/skill.)
2. Talk about Healthy and Not Healthy Foods with
class using white board, discussion, and model foods.
(10 minutes)

3. Show Healthy and Not Healthy slideshow/examples

and categorize with the class. (5 minutes)

4. Guide students in activity. (20 minutes)

5. Guide students in making a healthy snack. (10

minutes)

Student Activities:
1. Join in to talk about Healthy vs Not Healthy. (15
minutes)

2. Work on “How do you snack?” activity/project. (20

minutes)

3. Build their own healthy snack to eat! (10 minutes)

3. Modeling (How you will I will be using discussion, model foods/plastic foods, and
model/show/demonstrate the pictures to make sure that students see, hear, and touch healthy
concept?) foods. I will be facilitating the discussions on healthy and not
healthy choices, as well as showing examples of healthy foods
in class for students. To end, giving them the opportunity to
build a healthy snack, after I show them how, will demonstrate
the concept of balancing the snack and how to make their own.
This uses all three types of learning throughout the lesson to get
across to all learners, while keeping attention of all
kindergarteners.
4. Guided Practice (What will Guided practice will use the healthy and not healthy slide
show/example foods talking about each food, getting them
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students do to practice the new ready to do similar things with their activity chart. This will be
skill or develop the concept with mostly visual and auditory, with examples of model foods for a
the guidance of the teacher?) more kinesthetic aspect.
Students will be expected to sit if they think it is unhealthy and
stand if they think the food is healthy. This will keep students
engaged and active in the lesson, again adding the kinesthetic
aspect of movement.
5. Check for Understanding (How The entire lesson will be discussions and talking to each other,
will you check to see if students helping guide students to grasp the concept. As I work through
are grasping the concept? NOTE: the lesson, the students will be asked to answer the questions,
talking about what healthy means, and categorizing
this needs to be done throughout
foods/snacks. The students will then be using this to do their
the lesson and you should aim for activity/project, which will check the overall understanding at
at least 80% of the students to the end.
“get it”.) Students will be asked some of the following questions:
1. What do you think healthy means?

2. What are your favorite snacks?

3. Where do you think this snack belongs?

4. Give me an example of a healthy food.

5. Give me an example of an unhealthy food.

These questions will evaluate their learning and help me direct

the conversation to portions that may be unclear.
6. Independent Practice (What will Students will independently work on finding their own healthy
students do independently to snacks and completing their “How do you snack?” project,
demonstrate understanding of the showing whether or not they fully understood the concepts. The
activity has a rubric, simple for kindergarten age children, and
standards addressed in this
will identify where students need help.
lesson?)

7. Closure (What will you say to To summarize the lesson, the class will make a healthy snack
conclude/summarize the lesson?) (yogurt parfait) together, identifying the toppings that are
healthy and putting them on, as they would like, and enjoying
them at snack time.
Materials/Resources (Describe Materials:
materials/resources you will use to teach o Model foods
this lesson. Also, describe
materials/resources students will use to o White Board
practice the concept/skill taught.)
o Construction paper

o Pens/Markers
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o Yogurt

o Fruit, nut, granola, etc toppings for parfaits

o Cups

o Spoons

o Napkins

Red: used for healthy snack building

Green: student activity/project
Blue: Teaching lesson/discussion
Technological Resources (if utilized) o Student chrome books

o YouTube video

o Slide show

o Projector

o Printer

NOTES: All students will be accommodated for this lesson. Different

forms of instruction have been incorporated to make it
understandable for all students, but further accommodations
(microphone, alternative project, pre-cut or picked foods for
activity, etc) can be made for all student needs. This works well
for the age group, using mostly pictorial representations of food
for lesson and activity, and allowing hands-on building of
healthy snacks at end of video. Allergies will be considered
before activity so that all students may be included. Students
with special education services or ELL may find it easier to
understand the lesson through the pictures/images and if other
help is needed, the project can be simplified to less snacks, pre-
selected foods for the whole class, or even audio versions.

Reflection & Conclusion

Lesson Plan Revisions & Reflections

After discussing and reviewing my lesson plan with my host teacher, I was able to talk to

her about some adjustments and additions that would make this more effective for the
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kindergarten age group. Some points that she made are: access to printers, more direction, time,

and follow-up education. After thinking about it and listening to some of her suggestions, I have

made mental revisions that would help me to create and teach lessons in the future.

First, after reviewing my lesson plan, my host teacher brought up the fact that very few

classrooms will have access to print for the entire group. After hearing this, she suggested the

pictures either be homework assignment from the night before, providing a more specific list for

parents (i.e. a piece of fruit, a vegetable, a snack food, a kind of chip, etc.) or having preprinted

pictures to pass out. Considering the age group, I think it would be best to have preprinted

pictures, including more of a spelling lesson as well. I would do this by giving the class the

printed pictures and then asking them to find a certain food from the paper (i.e. “find the

banana”), followed by writing the word (i.e. “banana”) on the white board and having them

sound it out. The students will then choose where the food belongs on their project, healthy or

unhealthy category, and rewrite the word there with the picture pasted next to it. By doing all of

this, this also provides more direction and guided practice, which was my second area of focus.

The third improvement my host teacher suggested was to watch the time. We discussed

the fact that kindergarten lessons are typically much shorter than the hour, with only about 20-25

minutes to get them to focus on one area. Some of the things she enjoyed about my lesson were

the different variations of the lesson, movement, and small project. The only problem was that

the students aren’t used to lessons being that long. Since I will now be providing a pre-printed

list of pictures, I will be cutting it down to 5 pictures in total, instead of 10, and cutting out the

computer/printing portion, which will help cut the lesson down by another ten minutes.

Lastly, we discussed potential follow-up education and additional use of technology.

Something my host class has access to is a coding program, which can be directed toward any
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type of lesson. My host teacher suggested using the program to have an unhealthy and a healthy

food on the screen, asking the student to click on the healthy choice. This program would be

accessed within the following week, during computer time, to test their knowledge of the subject

we previously discussed.

Conclusion

After this process, I felt as if I not only learned about myself and my future challenges as

an educator, but student challenges and needs. I know that I am a very self-motivated individual

that prefers to learn kinesthetically, but not all students will identify that way and more

importantly, I need to prepare more for the students that are unlike myself so that I can readily

help them succeed. I also am more self-disciplined, but the class full of kindergarteners rarely

has students that can do that. To keep them motivated to learn, it takes a lot of interaction,

movement, and patience, which have all been great for me to practice.

Kindergarteners have been wonderful to observe, putting into perspective the need for

going back to the basics and keeping things simple, but challenging. I relied a lot on the idea of

limiting “milkshake-multitasking” while creating a comprehensive lesson plan for this age group

(Leaf, 2013). I had to think about keeping things simple, focused, and flowing well so that the

students didn’t become confused or distracted. Of course, this aligns with Medina’s (2014) idea

to keep things interesting in order to get students to pay attention, which I especially used when

incorporating movement in the main portion of my lesson and keeping things as interactive as

possible.

Overall, I fully enjoyed the opportunity to learn about myself, my students, and the things

that I should work to improve before I get my own classroom. I feel confident in my ability to

work in a classroom and interact with students, but also my ability to explain concepts to
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children with different learning styles. My host teacher has been great at providing me different

forms of experience to practice in, which I look forward to implementing in my classroom in the

near future.
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Artifacts

Howdoyou snack?
Rub ric:
Directions:nts will begiven oneof thefollowing “grades”when
Stude
1.the
Looykfinish
up10 the
picture
ir hesalthy
of snacks
snackyo u likeon your chrome
chart.
book.
Perfect!
2.Print out each pictureand cut it out.
3.On thecolored construction paper, makea “Healthy”
and a “NotNoHesp
althy”
ellingside.
mistakes and organized chart!
4.Put each of thepictures on thesideyou think they fit
best.
Great!
5.Circlea healthy food you want toeat moreof in
GREEN.
A fewspelling or organization improvements can bemade.
6.Put a purple next toa healthy food you eat a lot of.

Good Job!
7. Label each snack and check your spelling by
sounding words out.
Example:
Improvements in spelling and organization can bemade.

Complete!
Needs someimprovement for spelling and organization,
keeppracticing!

http://familythemedays.ca/Themes/HealthyMe.htm
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References

Education Planner. “What’s Your Learning Style?” Accessed January 13th, 2019.

http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles-quiz.shtml?

event=results&A=1&V=6&T=13

Keirsey. “What is your temperament?” Accessed January 13th, 2019.

https://profile.keirsey.com/#/temperament

Kindergarten Learning Style Survey. (n.d.). Retrieved January 14, 2019, from

https://www.acsi.org/Documents/MidAmerica/Meagan%20Moremen%20handout

%201%20kindergarten.pdf

Leaf, C. (2013). Switch on your brain: The key to peak happiness, thinking, and health.  Grand

Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

McCormick, C.B. & Scherer, D.G. (2018).  Child and adolescent development for educators

(2nd ed). New York: Guilford Press, Inc.

Personality Type. “PersonalityType.com Assessment.” Accessed January 13th, 2019.

http://www.personalitytype.com/career_quiz?type=1

Psychology Today. “Multiple Intelligences & Learning Style Test.” Accessed January 13th, 2019.

http://psychologytoday.tests.psychtests.com/bin/transfer

San Diego City College Mesa Program. “The Quick Emotional Intelligence Self-Assessment.”

Accessed January 13th, 2019.

http://www.sdcity.edu/portals/0/cms_editors/mesa/pdfs/emotionalintelligence.pdf