Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development

Professional standards for bc educators
Plants are often used as metaphors for growth and development, this is a head of leaf lettuce from my garden a few years ago. It started with me planting a seed and ended as a huge head of lettuce.

This standard has two parts. The first is broad, educators understand student growth and development though years and grades, and understanding how students grow and develop over the school year and use strategies to help their growth and development. on a smaller Ievel, educators understand the growth and development of individual students and help move them forward. This involves getting to know students, but also knowing strategies to help students when they are struggling with particular topus or subjects.

I think there is some general knowledge educators can know about student growth and development. How literacy, numeracy skills build over time, but educators also need to see where students are at the beginning of the year to see where each student is. For literacy, there are reading assessments that have to happen once or twice a year, and that the next teacher can look at from the May before. Doing a numeracy assessment in September with concepts from the previous year is a strategy I’ve seen used and heard gives a good starting point. Other pieces involve time and getting to know students. Small group instruction, using resources and support teachers can also help students in their growth and development.

During practicum I got to see small bit of student growth and development, and got an insight into the long term, when I got to help conduct reading assessments and my Coaching Teacher showed me the data she received and how she’d tell students how much progress they made since their last reading assessment the year before.

Standard 4