The Professional practice domain encompasses the actions that teachers take to apply teaching and learning within the classroom.  This entails using their professional knowledge to effectively plan assessments, units of learning, and lessons to implement well-designed programs and lessons for student learning.  This requires teachers to glean key information from the curriculum, education frameworks, and colleagues to develop learning that is meaningful and appropriate for their students, deliver appropriately suited challenges to get the best from their students and enable them to practice and apply learning. 

Another key part of this domain is meeting students’ physical and emotional needs to ensure learning can occur through creating and maintaining safe and supportive learning environments (Maslow, 1943).  This is another core belief of my teaching philosophy as it is through a safe, welcoming learning environment where students feel a sense of belonging, that students feel excited to come to school, engage socially with peers, and develop a genuine love of learning. 

To ensure students are suitably challenged and teaching is targeted to students’ needs, student learning must be assessed and interpreted to provide feedback to improve learning, modify future teaching practices, and reporting of achievement to stakeholders.

References:

Maslow, A. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370-369.