Educators implement effective planning, instruction, assessment and reporting practices to create respectful, inclusive environments for student learning and development.

This standard really provides a sense of direction that other standards serve different purposes for. I believe that with this standard in mind, I am able to hone a more research, inquiry based practice that I can implement into my classroom. Not only does this provide students with learning and development, but with the educator as well because of its language and how it applies to adaptability in the classroom. The standard includes effective planning and instruction, which admittedly are areas that I really struggled with at the beginning of my teaching education and first practicum. By including several different methods of practice with instruction in my first practicum, I was able to see how I can form different lessons. At first, there was poor explanation of the assignments, but as I went on in my practicum, I was growing in my areas of instruction, which in turn created more growth and development in my students as well. I found that adding studied methods of assessment really helped in this instruction and planning process. Diving into how students are influenced over assessment really aided in my growth even further, in conjunction with my students’ growth. Including a four point rubric not just for an assessment of learning, but an assessment FOR learning really changed the way I thought about assessment practices and how I could contribute to student progression. Overall, I thought these practices were essential to my growth as a teacher and by doing so, I was able to see growth in my students due to my own growth mindset. As a result, my classroom management was less of a notion because of the positive, creative, respective, and inclusive learning environments I was able to produce. This standard does identify the need and demands for student growth, but what I think this standard is really saying is that teacher growth and life-long learning processes, such as instruction, planning and assessment, need to happen first in order for educators to facilitate optimal growth in students.