Professional dispositions were reviewed in Module 1 and discussed with your GCU Supervisor throughout this course. Consider how you have demonstrated these dispositions within your student teaching classroom during this course.
Write a 250-500 word reflection on how you have grown in this area. Identify steps you will take to improve where necessary.
Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
This assignment uses a grading rubric. Instructors will be using the rubric to grade the assignment; therefore, students should review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the assignment criteria and expectations for successful completion of the assignment.
I completed my student teaching at TR Sanders Elementary in a 2nd grade classroom. The subject was English and the unit was on Author’s Purpose. Here is a list of the Professional Dispositions:
Professional Dispositions of Learners
Dispositions are the values, commitments, and professional ethics that influence behaviors toward students, families, colleagues, and communities and which affect student learning and achievement, motivation, and development, as well as the educator’s own professional growth. If sincerely held, dispositions should lead to actions and patterns of professional conduct.
For Grand Canyon University teacher and administrator preparation program learners, these dispositions flow from the University’s mission statement. A values-based education emphasizing community, character, and citizenship in the context of a Christian worldview seeks to teach, reinforce, support, and cause learners to contemplate certain foundational values which Christianity contends lead to a good life. These normative Christian values are integral to the development, maturity, and education of ethical and morally respectable citizens who continue on the path of life-long learning and service. For teacher and administrator preparation program learners, this is manifested in the professional dispositions each carries into the educational community.
The ten dispositions described below have been aligned to the NCATE Standards, the 2008 INTASC Principles, the ISLLC Standards, and to Danielson’s 2009 Framework for Teaching as indicated in the table below.
Professional Dispositions and Standards Alignment
Professional Dispositions NCATE 2008 INTASC 2008 ISLLC 2008 Danielson 2009
High Expectations 1 1, 2, 6 2 1, 2, 3
Respect for the Diversity of Others 1, 4 3, 6 4 2
Fairness 1, 5 3, 5 5 1, 2, 3, 4
Professional Conduct 1, 3 3, 5 5 2, 4
Reflection 1 7, 8, 9 2 4
Curiosity 1 4, 7, 8 2 3, 4
Honesty 1 5 5 2, 4
Compassion 1 5 2, 5 2, 4
Advocacy 1 10 4, 6 2, 4
Dedication 1 10 2 4
High Expectations: Educators should believe that all students can learn and should set and support realistic expectations for student success. These expectations should be communicated in positive ways.
Educators within the College of Education believe that all students have the capacity to be successful in their academic endeavors. To that end, they support rigorous but realistic expectations for student success. Goals for learner achievement are based in the tenets of critical thinking and a global perspective of the educational community as a whole. Further, goals are stipulated to include the skills sets and best practices regarding educational theory, methodology, and assessment in order to assure learners complete their programs with a highly developed and effective pedagogy. Goals and expectations are communicated in a positive and proactive manner with the recognition that learners are capable of constructively reaching their goals. Collaboration and teamwork are emphasized in this process, in that the entire educational process is a collaborative effort directed at a successful and prudent result.
High Expectations is demonstrated by the following behaviors:
Identifying both strengths and weaknesses in students through assessment
Using the knowledge to individualize instruction for each student
Monitoring and assessing in real time and changing practice almost as quickly
Knowing students and their interests and abilities
Communicating expectations positively through a variety of methods
Including students in the planning of the classroom goals
Respect for the Diversity of Others: Educators should be sensitive to individual learning and social needs of students and embrace the cultural diversity of the community. They should develop and maintain educational communities marked by respect for others. They should interact with their students, fellow educators, administrators, parents, and other community members with courtesy and civility, and establish relationships characterized by respect and rapport.
College of Education faculty strives to create a culture of mutual respect, tolerance, and fellowship among themselves, learners, and PK-12 colleagues. Faculty demonstrates pluralistic cultural behaviors, and learners are provided the requisite skills necessary to become professional models within a diverse culture. Learners implement the knowledge, skills, and dispositions required to meet the needs of students from different cultures, genders, and exceptionalities. Within this nurturing environment, learners express and demonstrate awareness of the important individual and cultural differences that form the rich cultural tapestry of a global society.
Respect for the Diversity of Others is demonstrated by the following behaviors:
Embracing diversity in all things
Using diversity to cast light on perspective
Inviting diversity of thought and practice from others
Celebrating the potential of diversity
Knowing the backgrounds and cultures of students
Not tolerating or minimizing inappropriate behavior when observed
Challenging students to report inappropriate behavior, providing a positive and supportive environment that allows students to feel safe in reporting it
Fairness: Educators should promote social justice and equity, maintain appropriate standards of confidentiality, and exercise fairness in all areas including assessment.
Fairness can be difficult to describe and is often a matter of perception. It is said that “we know it when we see it,” but for educators, fairness is a much more calculated entity. Educators help students to behave in ways that promote equality among them, ensuring that all students are treated in a manner consistent with the Golden Rule, a cross-cultural ethical precept found in nearly all religions of the world. Additionally, educators maintain standards of confidentiality based in the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (20 U.S.C. § 1232g), known in education circles as FERPA or the Buckley Amendment after its principle senatorial sponsor. Educators exercise fairness in the equality with which they treat all students and in their formative and summative assessment practices.
Fairness is demonstrated by the following behaviors:
Building positive relationships with the students
Engaging students in conversations beyond the scope to the class
Taking time to understand student issues and concerns
Assessing student learning consistently and without bias
Guiding students through the problem solving process
Seeking to understand the issues and challenges facing students
.Professional Conduct: Educators should exercise sound judgment and ethical behavior. They should be a positive role model within their community.
All College of Education programs of study prepare learners to work in demographically, socioeconomically, and academically diverse settings and to anticipate future professional challenges. Teacher professional conduct is not confined to the classroom but extends outside it into the areas of service and community as well. Teachers must model ethical behavior and exhibit integrity. They are committed to positively influencing all students within their classrooms and surrounding community environs on both an academic and personal levels. They maintain confidentiality for student privacy in cooperation with federal mandates and personal ethics; as well demonstrate responsibility in areas of leadership, assessment, and organization. They interact appropriately with students and their families, as well as with peers, faculty, administrators, and external constituents. They exhibit professional traits and skills ranging from punctuality and consistent attendance to proactive attitudes in all settings.
Professional conduct is demonstrated by the following behaviors:
Exhibiting professionalism (timeliness, attendance, attire, attitudes) in university and school settings
Exhibiting initiative and dedication
Demonstrating respect for self, colleagues, students, and property
Committing to teaching all students with the belief all students can learn
Interacting appropriately, effectively, with students and their families, peers, faculty, administrators, and external audiences
Communicating appropriately, frequently and effectively
Demonstrating responsibility, accountability, integrity, and resourcefulness
Actively participating in school, and professional learning communities
Acting in congruence with local, state, and national policy and law that govern education
Reflection: Educators should recognize that reflection combined with experience leads to growth as a professional. Educators should be thoughtful about their professional practice, critically examine it, and seek continual improvement.
Reflective practice is at the heart of teaching. Learners in teacher education programs discover that highly effective teachers continuously reflect on their professional and instructional actions and decisions in support of student learning and achievement. The teacher is an instructional decision maker who monitors and adjusts instruction by using observation, contextual, and assessment data relating to students’ performance and responses. These multi-layered sources of information about student learning guide instructional decisions. By reflecting on contextual, performance, formative, and summative assessment data, teachers can gage student learning and direct and revise instructional focus. Instructional decision making is based on the proactive concept of early assistance and matches instructional resources through evidence to the core of the students’ needs.
Reflection is demonstrated by the following behaviors:
Seeking feedback to measure the effectiveness of processes
Using feedback to change ineffective processes
Monitoring and adjusting actions based on reflective practices
Avoiding sacred behaviors – it may not be broken, but it can always be improved
Observing others in practice and learning from the experience
Asking questions of colleagues and supervisors
Making time for reflective process daily
Curiosity: Educators should promote and support curiosity and encourage active inquiry. They should be able to think innovatively and creatively, using critical thinking as a problem-solving approach.
Curiosity impels motivated students to explore and seek answers. Teachers promote curiosity through effective engagement strategies and actions that support students in their discovery of new ideas and build meaning through their own cognitive processes, as well as steer them towards becoming lifelong learners. Teachers support curiosity by creating opportunities for discovery, authentic problem solving, and inquiry-based learning and activities, and they facilitate discussion and activities to guide students to explore, discover, and construct meaning (Marzano, 2003). Student exploration and integration of information is a means to problem solve and create rather than engage in transference of knowledge. Purposefully connecting curiosity to student cognitive growth resulting in student academic success creates impactful, powerful teacher practitioners. Creating learning environments focused on intellectual curiosity will sustain high academic performance and achievement for all learners.
Curiosity is demonstrated by the following behaviors:
Asking higher order questions
Posing real world challenges and case studies for resolution
Stimulating students to think creatively and “outside the box”
Challenging and motivating students to think critically and problem solve
Asking students to challenge the status quo
Encouraging collaboration and teamwork to solve authentic problems
Honesty: Educators should model integrity by their words and actions. They should be forthright with others and uphold high standards of trust, character, and integrity.
Professional behavior for educators is often defined as the process in which an individual engages while making ethical or moral decisions regarding dilemmas that occur as part of the act of teaching (Stoddard, 2006). In addition to academic qualifications, a professional teacher must act in an ethical manner based on an explicit or implicit code of conduct through the development of characteristics of a professional and they must model professionalism every day. As servant leaders, it is essential that teachers exhibit honesty in the classroom to meet the academic program goals as well as individual learning goals of the students within their responsibility. This allows teachers to develop meaningful professional relationships, integrate various perspectives, and remain transparent during the decision making process for developing and implementing holistic solutions. Teachers also encouraged to maintain high expectations in regards to student interaction and decision making by modeling increased scholarship, integrity, and character.
Honesty is demonstrated by the following behaviors:
Saying what you mean and meaning what you say
Always speaking truthfully to your students
Being transparent in your decision making processes
Engaging in ensuring that input from all stake holders is included
Using student input to make decisions
Always keeping the students in the center of your decision making process
Compassion: Educators should demonstrate professional friendliness, warmth, and genuine caring in their relationships with others while providing intellectual, emotional, and spiritual support.
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