At the start of my induction, I aimed to improve CSTP 1, specifically by deepening student understanding through discussion. I wanted to move beyond clear presentations and empower students to actively process and articulate their learning. My goal was to shift from teacher-led questioning to facilitating student-led conversations where they could collaboratively explore concepts. This also motivated my focus on integrating arts this year, as creative expression proved a powerful way to engage students with content.

Throughout this year, I intentionally focused on implementing various techniques to cultivate student-led conversations and integrate the arts as a means of making subject matter more comprehensible and engaging. For example, in our novel study, I not only implemented partner talk to help with comprehension, but also incorporated a group project that had each group create a poster of the protagonist which highlighted specific reading skills. These artistic activities often naturally led to rich student-led discussions as they shared their interpretations and creative choices.

My final self-assessment shows significant growth in CSTP 1: Making Subject Matter Comprehensible to Students, particularly in elements 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5.

For our recent novel study, I saw rich partner talk as students clarified plot points and character motivations (1.3). The collaborative poster project, where groups visually represented the protagonist and specific reading skills, demonstrated my improved ability to select and use suitable instructional strategies (1.4) that catered to diverse learning styles. As students discussed their artistic choices and textual evidence, I focused on providing clear explanations and examples (1.5) to solidify their understanding of the reading skills. These artistic activities naturally fostered student-led conversations, allowing them to share interpretations and justify creative decisions with textual evidence.

This progress is further supported by my post-assessment, which shows increased student articulation of literary elements in their own words (1.3), improved collaborative problem-solving during the poster project (1.4), and a greater ability to connect visual representations with textual meaning in discussions (1.5).

While I’ve significantly progressed in fostering student-led discussions and integrating arts for comprehension, my next step is to seamlessly weave artistic expression and academic discourse for even deeper learning. I’ll focus on researching pedagogical approaches like visual thinking strategies and arts-based inquiry to intentionally bridge artistic creation and academic conversation.