Scaffolding Learning With GoReact

James Falco:

And we have been utilizing GoReact thankfully for the last two years. When I took over, it was something we put in place immediately, and admittedly, so the first semester, I think it was something we were learning, we’re continuing to learn about it, excited to continue expanding upon it. But with our second-year alternate route candidates who are going through what we refer to, excuse me, something in my eye as our phase three and four candidates. So they’re in their second year, they have one year under their belt, they’ve worked with a mentor, they begin to use GoReact. And as Alexis said, as we expanded virtually and we now have candidates from our northernmost and southernmost parts of the state, GoReact allows us the opportunity to get into those classrooms and provide intentional coaching. We start out by utilizing some shorter, less complex assignments that revolve around candidates using a singular high leverage teaching practice or reflecting on one of a number of different things, perhaps some critical dispositions from our professional standards topics that we’re discussing at that time in their experience. And then we move on to, as Alexis said, some larger performance measures where candidates are required to design a lesson or learning segment, which is eventually their ultimate a performance measure that has taken the place of edTPA, but they do a singular lesson and then a learning segment. They engage in collaboration with their peers leading up to that. And then for those two larger assignments, I work with other instructors and we triangulate feedback for them. They also complete a self-assessment and have an opportunity to do the same in the same way a teacher candidate would in a traditional program.