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Pursuing Perfection: What it Takes to Become a National Board Certified Teacher
Description
It is a rigorous, time-consuming, and challenging process, one that produces some of the very best and highly trained teachers in the entire nation.
On this episode, we meet two Jordan School District educators who recently achieved National Board Certification. Find out how this personal drive for perfection is taking their teaching practices to new heights, benefiting students and colleagues in other classrooms alike.
Audio Transcription
Raechel Bunnell:
And I did what I want my students to do. I looked and saw what I needed, where my deficiencies were, what parts of history did I need to study. How hard is it to watch yourself teach on a video?
Leslie Steele:
It is very stressful.
Anthony Godfrey:
Nobody likes watching themselves or listening to themselves.
Raechel Bunnell”
No, you're like, "Oh, my posture is bad." I keep saying, "Huh?" Like there's all kinds of things.
Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It is a rigorous, time-consuming, and challenging process. One that produces some of the most highly trained teachers in the entire nation.
On this episode of the Supercast, we meet two Jordan School District teachers who recently achieved National Board Certification. Doing so required them to submit materials from their lesson plans, recordings of their lessons, and many self-reflections that were reviewed at the national level by experts. Find out how their personal drive to be their very best is taking their teaching practices to new heights.
[Music]We're talking today with our two teachers in Jordan School District who are newly Board Certified at the national level. We want to talk with them about the process, but first, just introduce yourself.
Leslie Steele:
I'm Leslie Steele and I teach first grade at Eastlake Elementary.
Raechel Bunnell:
Raechel Bunnell and I teach social studies at Riverton High School.
Anthony Godfrey;
We're going to dive right into it and ask what impact has this had on your teaching going through this process?
Leslie Steele:
Oh my gosh, a huge impact. Not just for the kids who I certified with last year, but the kids this year. It asks you to really reflect on your practice. You video yourself and you watch it over and over and over and find places where you ask good questions and places where you could ask better questions. And the goal isn't perfection. It's reflecting on your practice. How can I dig deeper? How can I be better next time?
Also, you really analyze student work. For my path of certification, I'm early childhood literacy. So that's reading, writing, listening, speaking for ages 3 to 11. So it's a big span. But you basically take student work and just like dive in and work with that student one-on-one and help them craft their writing to be much better. So you're just really going deeper with things that teachers are doing every day.
Raechel Bunnell:
How hard is it to watch yourself teach on a video?
Leslie Steele:
It is very stressful.
Anthony Godfrey:
Nobody likes watching themselves or listening to themselves.
Raechel Bunnell:
You're like, "Oh my posture is bad. I keep saying, “huh” like there's all kinds of things. And that just makes you a better teacher. The reflection part of it is absolutely a big part of why board certification.
Leslie Steele:
It's a really good way to reflect on your teaching and always grow and always be better. It's not like, you know, this board certification process it says like, "Hey, these are really excellent teachers." But also it's like these are teachers that are continuing to grow, that are continuing to move forward and not just be stagnant in one place. You know after I got my master's degree I was like, "