Through my summer externship of Engineering with my mentors I explored the Engineering Design Process. What’s funny about this process is I felt that I was previously using bits and pieces of this, but not in a consistent and sequential manner. After participating in my externship and attending the summer PD’s I have seen how important this process is to me as a teacher. I find myself jotting down the steps as I am planning lessons and will now use this as I plan, prepare, teach and evaluate all of my lessons.

Through the Data PD I also realized how important it is to document my students work through the year as well as my own. I will be creating a digital portfolio for each of my students as well as for myself to use as an observation/evaluation tool. As it was mentioned in our PD, our observers don’t get to see EVERY lesson we do in class so they may miss key pieces for our evaluations. I will be making videos, taking pictures and documenting work in my room to use as assessment pieces for my students and myself.