P2 – Practice differentiated instruction

Teacher-candidates apply principles of differentiated instruction, including theories of language acquisition, stages of language, and academic language development, in the integration of subject matter across the content areas of reading, mathematical, scientific, and aesthetic reasoning.

As a teacher candidate it is so important to understand the research that lies behind differentiating a classroom lesson for the various kinds of learners that I have in my classroom.  Students from every walk of life and having any number of learning needs and not every lesson that I plan is going to work for all of them. It is up to me to plan lessons and activities are appropriate for everyone.

In my internship classroom I have a lot of students who need me to teach and do things differently in the way that they show they are making progress. In order to show my competency in this a area I have attached a copy of a lesson and assessment that I differentiated and gave my students.

goldilocks lesson

This assessment shows my proficiency in this area because I had to intentionally plan times for my students to show what they know in their own way. I also had to plan a way for all of my students to be able to understand the information that I presented to them.

In giving this lesson to my students I learned that it is more difficult to differentiate ahead of time then you think. There were times that I had to differentiate my lessons in the middle of a lesson; this is differentiating from the differentiation that I had already planned ahead of time.   I learned It is okay to have a plan but that it is also okay to stray from your plan if that is what the students need.

This lesson benefitted my students because the students that struggle to show what they know and the students who already know the material a way to represent their thinking. All of my students are talented and intelligent in their own way. It is my job to work as hard as I have to and be as flexible as I need to in order to get them to learn.

In the future I will continue to work as hard as I have to because my differentiations are not always going to work the first time. You can never be for positive that the changes you are making are going to be the right one. It is my job to continue to make changes that they need and continue to try things until you find something that works so all of the students in your class can learn.

P3 – Practice standards-based assessment.

Teacher-candidates use standards-based assessment that is systematically analyzed using multiple formative, summative, and self-assessment strategies to monitor and improve instruction.

It is important that teacher-candidates learn to properly use assessment to assess their students understanding of the learning target for the lesson. Teachers must be able to give assessments that allow multiple ways for students to show how much they know at the end of a unit or lesson.

In my internship placement classroom we were just finishing up our section on snails which is part of the Animals two by two. To wrap up our unit on snails which was all about the parts of land and water snails ad how they use those body parts we first had the students observe the snails and talk about what body parts are the same and are different. Than as a whole class we reviewed the parts of a snail. I used this as a formative assessment because I was able to gauge how well my students understood snail parts and their functions at that time. Finally as my summative assessments the students were asked to draw and label as best as they could a picture of a land snail and/or a water snail and write a fact sentence about them. As evidence of my competency in this area I have included the whole class drawing that we made and some samples of students drawing and writing about their snails.

These assessment examples are evidence of my growing competency in this area because I planned them out with the help of my mentor teacher and then I administered them with little difficulty. The whole class discussion gave students  a chance to evaluate their own misconceptions about snails and they were able to write things that were true about snails, as well as label their picture once they had to do it on their own.

What I learned while planning and administering these assessments is that formative assessments are a great opportunity to make in the moment changes to your teaching. If the students are not getting it, it is always okay to go back and reteach in a different way to make sure that every student got what they were supposed to out of the lessons.

My students benefited from these assessments because first I gave them an opportunity to put all their thoughts into words and in one place at the front of the board. This made it possible for them to put their thoughts down on paper. Sometimes in kindergarten writing assignments don’t go as planned because some students are still struggling with their letter sounds. The way that I laid out the assessment allowed all of the students to write something about snails and the students that could write more did.

Next time I would like the students to do some self-reflection and self assessment about how well they think they did on their assessment as well as understanding the lesson.

P2 – Practice differentiated instruction.

Teacher-candidates apply principles of differentiated instruction, including theories of language acquisition, stages of language, and academic language development, in the integration of subject matter across the content areas of reading, mathematical, scientific, and aesthetic reasoning.

No matter what class a teacher is going to teach they are going to have a variety of learners in their class. Instruction is not a one size fits all thing and when I am a teacher I am going to have to change and differentiate my lessons so that all of my students are given an equal opportunity to learn.

In my internship classroom we were asked to differentiate a lesson and assessment so that it could be used with any student regardless of language, culture, or ability.  Below I have attached a copy of my lesson, assessment and the reasoning for them as evidence of my growing competency in this area

Strategies for Diverse learners

This piece of evidence represents my growing competency in this area because I had to learn about and research different ways to make my lessons meaningful for all of my students. I had to think deeply about the variety of students that I could possibly have in my class someday and adapt my lesson so that I could teach all of the students in an equal way.

By completing this assignment I was able to learn more about my own ability plan lessons that can be meaningful for any and all students. There were times that I had to think out of the box and it was challenging because sometimes I forget about my own ability, so this assignment was also quite humbling.

I think that the lesson that I planned can be really fun and engaging for students in a kindergarten class. They get to discuss and work with their classmates, everyone gets to participate in all of the activities that I have planned and I made sure to try and my activities as accessible as I could. Plus they get to make some of their own meaning which will help their understanding immensely.

In the future I think I would like to give this lesson a try in the classroom and then tweak it depending on how well it works or doesn’t work in the classroom that I am teaching in.