Clinical Practice II Journals

Clinical Practice II Journal Expectations and Prompts

Journaling has a critical role to play as you move through your clinical practice.   Journaling provides opportunities for you to reflect on the contextual factors of the school, and your understanding of the occurrences that you observe; it is not a repository for minute-to-minute recording of incidents.  Further, journaling promotes your ability to reflect on your experiences in and out of the P – 12 classroom, and to share your impressions of the events in which you engage with faculty who are entrusted with your guidance and supervision. 

Journal Expectations  

Timeliness: Teacher candidate submits weekly journal entries as requested without reminders.

Critical Thinking: Teacher candidate responds to journal prompts with substantial information demonstrating 1) application of knowledge, 2) connections between experience and content taught in preparation program.

Substantive Entry: Teacher candidate submits organized and logically sequenced journal and reflection responses.  The entry contains detailed information, connections and reflections of experience.

Writing: Teacher candidate communicates effectively in writing using correct grammar, punctuation and spelling.

Reflection:  Teacher candidate deeply reflects on his/her own practice with evidence of analysis, synthesis or evaluation. Provides detailed examples and makes connections between practice, research and theory.

 Instructions:

1.  Use the weekly template, linked below, to respond to the journal and reflection writing prompt.
2.  Save (Save As) your journal entry in a location where you will be able to retrieve it for submission and reference. 
3.  E-mail your weekly journal entry as an attachment to your clinical supervisor.  Submit your journal entries as requested by your seminar instructor.
4.  Write your journal entry using academic language.  Proof read your work.

Remember:

Do not use student, teacher or other staff names in any journal entry. The journal is used to build an understanding of community, school and classroom factors; and to provide an opportunity to reflect on your professional practice and observations.  It is not appropriate to pass judgement.

Each journal and reflection prompt supports candidates’ growth in the COE Competencies and edTPA and are tagged with the competency(s) and/or tasks to which they are aligned.

Week  

Clinical Practice II Journal Prompts

 

Week 1

 

Journal Prompt:  What excites you about participating in clinical practice II?  What is an area of concern or worry about participating in clinical practice II ? What steps will you take to improve the area of concern?

 

Week 2

Journal Prompt:   Meet with your CE and discuss their professional expectations for your CP II internship. Describe your schedule for the semester. Specifically, describe  1) when you will attempt using different co-teaching models; 2) new classroom responsibilities and tasks;  3)  the plan for teaching lessons.   Review: Guide for Clinical Practice II. Thinking forward: What professional skills/ dispositions do you plan to practice this semester? How do you intend to improve this area? (C15) 

 

Week 3

Journal Prompt:   Describe three routines your CE uses to facilitate a  healthy, safe and organized learning environment. Next describe how you and your CE learn about your students’ cultural and personal backgrounds. How would you use information about students to inform your curriculum? (C3) 

 

Week 4

Journal Prompt:  After a few weeks in the classroom, how do you and your CE learn/ research the interests, strengths, and needs of your students? How can  students’ assets and needs influence your instructional planning? Think about one learner. What are some strengths and interests the student has (cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional and physical)? How can you use the student’s strengths and interests to design lessons which tap these  assets?   (C1, edTPA Task 1)

 

Week 5

Journal Prompt:   Name at least three effective instructional strategies you have successfully implemented which support diverse learners to meet the immediate needs of the school community. How are these strategies supported by research? Why do you think they  are effective? (C11, Task 2,  UCC SLO 1) 

 

Week 6 

Journal Prompt:  How do your students know specific learning goals/ evaluation criteria for a lesson you taught? Describe and give an example of  a time when you shared specific feedback with a learner. What feedback did you share? How did you provide feedback? How did the learner  use / apply the feedback? Describe how you know the learner understood or did not understand your  feedback.  (C10, edTPA Task 3)

 

Week 7 

Journal Prompt:   In your own words, what is classroom management? Management is often referred to as “invisible” when implemented successfully. What are some strategies your CE and you use to help develop a safe and positive community of learning?  Share an example of when you attempted a strategy. Explain whether the strategy worked or not and why. (C3, edTPA Task 2)  

 

Week 8 

Journal Prompt: Probing and eliciting learners’ responses requires many techniques (rephrasing using students’ response, wait time, affirmation). To deepen learners’ understanding  we must vary  the questions we ask and follow up on learners’ responses. What techniques or strategies do you use to improve your questioning strategies? What is an example of a time during a lesson when you attempted to deepen a learner’s understanding based on the learner’s response (i.e., learner did not respond, only  responded with one word, offered an unexpected response, or answered incorrectly)? (C12, edTPA Task 2)

 

Week 9

Journal Prompt:  What is special and unique about your teaching style? Share three teaching qualities that distinguish you from others.  How do these qualities support diverse learners? How do these qualities support a teaching team? (C3)

 

Week 10

Journal Prompt:  Select one lesson you taught. Look carefully at the data from one assessment (formal or informal). Considering the objective this assessment was designed to measure, describe the performance of the whole class. Focus on one student’s  performance. How did the data inform your decision making regarding the next steps in teaching to meet students’ needs? Describe your next steps to support this student’s  meeting of the learning objective (i.e. additional supports; reteaching; flexible grouping; scaffolding material) (C9, edTPA Task 3, UCC SLO 2)

 

Week 11


Journal Prompt:  Select a lesson you recently taught that integrated technology; analyze assessment data from this lesson. While analyzing the lesson’s assessment data, reflect back to “how” you taught the lesson and how the technology supported student growth. Make connections between students’ strengths and weaknesses and the specific strategies/ techniques you used. Next, identify teaching strategies, resources, and materials that may  improve the lesson. What feedback would you give yourself about the lesson in terms of how you helped engage students in making real-life/real-world connections with the content taught? Provide specific experiences in your response.   (C14, edTPA Task 3, UCC SLO 3)

 

Week 12

Journal Prompt:  The professional community includes: paraprofessionals, mentors, superintendents, administrators, families, child study team, community members, and colleagues. Which professional community members do you feel the most comfortable working with? Please give an example  of a positive experience and explain why? Which professional community members do you feel the least  comfortable working with? What is one step you can take to feel more comfortable? How do you plan to participate as a leader in the professional community in the school and at the university?  How will these experiences impact your teaching and students?    (C16, UCC SLO 4)

 

Week 13

Journal Prompt: Give at least two specific examples of either planned or on-the-spot strategies you used to integrate accommodations and differentiated instruction in your lessons. Reflect  on the challenges and lessons you have learned from supporting students’ varied needs. What differentiation advice might you share with a colleague? (C2, edTPA Task 1)

 

Week 14

 

Journal Prompt: What excites and worries you now as you continue on the professional teaching continuum - transitioning from a teacher candidate to a beginning teacher?