Teacher Reflection Paper

I am proud to be a teacher, and I work to strengthen and improve the teaching profession by training other educators. I do this because I believe that the quality of a child 's teacher can be the most important factor in determining his or her success.

Therefore, I train and support veteran teachers, new teachers, and student interns who are pursing education as a career. I strengthen the teaching profession by strengthening teachers. As a mentor teacher in the Montgomery County Public Schools, I support new teachers as well as student interns from the University of Maryland. This role is significant because it is widely reported that many teachers leave the profession within their first five years, and note a lack of support and isolation as one

While pursuing National Board

Certification, I discovered that reflection is an essential component of good teaching. I believe that teachers who have the ability to reflect are ever evolving and hold themselves accountable for student learning. I realize that good teachers are not necessarily those who have the most successful lessons or the class with the best test scores. Good teachers are those who have the ability and the insight to reflect on a lesson, understand what went well or what went wrong and search for strategies to make it better the next time.

Students also should share the accountability because they are ultimately responsible for their own learning. Even with excellent instruction, a thoughtful curriculum, and an abundance of resources, students need to put forth effective effort to succeed. Students should be taught this belief and given tools to assist in self-evaluation. When determining accountability, standardized tests cannot be the sole basis of what is accomplished in the classroom. On the contrary, multiple measures must be utilized to determine student learning and accountability. I believe these measures could include, but are not limited