O2. – Offer appropriate challenge in the content area.

Teacher-candidates plan and/or adapt curricula that are standards driven so students develop understanding and problem-solving expertise in the content area(s) using reading, written and oral communication, and technology.

Teacher candidates need to have the ability to design lessons that are not only fitted to what the students need to learn but are made to benefited to teach how the students need to learn as well. There are times that we must be able to tailor the given curriculum to fit what we think our students will benefit from because what we are given is just not working. A classroom is not a one size fits all environment so one curriculum straight out of the book might leave some things to be desired.

As evidence of my ability to plan and adapt lessons I have attached a math lesson that I planned and taught in my internship class this last week. This was the first math lesson that I taught in my class and I felt like the students gained a lot from it.

math showcase lesson

This lesson is a good example of my competency in this area because I took a lesson out of the required curriculum that we use in my classroom and I modified it to ensure that my students were getting the most out of the lesson. I wanted the students to have a good understanding of composing and decomposing numbers so that they can continue to gain a deeper understanding of addition. The biggest change that I made was changing the lesson from a more teacher directed lesson. My students were able to build and take apart the number 7 on their own, where as if I would have read it right out of the curriculum.

After teaching this lesson I think the biggest thing that I learned is that it is okay to try new things. Sometimes they might not work and sometimes they will go even better than expected. This time things happened to go really great. The students had some good discussion about the parts in the number 7 and I felt that for the most part they had a solid grasp on the concept. The most important thing was that I was willing to change the things because I know my students and what they need.

This affected my student learning because I tried to tailor the lesson to their needs mathematically. There are students in my class who were already decomposing ten or more and there are students who are still composing numbers to five so I made sure to give them the opportunity to work at their level while still practicing the targeted skill.

I cannot wait to start planning and teaching more math lessons so that I can hone my skills at modify lessons to make sure my students are learning what they need to be learning in the way that they learn best.

P1 – Practice intentional inquiry and planning for instruction.

Teacher-candidates plan and/or adapt standards-based curricula that are personalized to the diverse needs of each student.

When teacher-candidates plan a lesson they must be very intentional about the way in which they go about the instruction. It is above all most important that the instruction that is taking place be well suited for every student in a class. Teacher-candidates must strive to plan a lesson that will be enjoyable and valuable to every student in their class. This includes using different kinds of strategies and methods to get the message of the lesson to every student.

In my kindergarten placement classroom I taught my very first whole class lesson this week. The lesson was focused on healthy eating and I used the book The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food to introduce the five basic food groups. To show my growing competency in this area I have included a copy of my lesson plan, part of the display that I used for instruction and some student examples from the independent work that they created.

nutrition lesson K

White Board activity we did as a class.

Student Work.

Student Work.

My lesson is evidence of my competency in this area because when I took on the task of planning this lesson I wanted to make sure that I created a genuine learning experience for all of my students. I wanted all of my students to gain knowledge of the subject area because not only are they learning good language arts skills, they were learning about how to take care of their bodies to keep them healthy.

By planning and teaching this lesson to my students not only did they learn about eating healthy, I learned as well. I learned that even if you plan your lesson with your students’ needs in mind you might have to adapt your lesson in the middle of instruction because it is not working for all of the students. Toward the end of the lesson I saw that they students were having a hard time sitting and I had to get them up and moving so that I could keep their attention. I also learned that you have to gauge questioning strategies for your students and at times it is okay to let them continue to question off of the original question.

My lesson that I planned and taught affects the learning of my students because with every lesson that I plan and that I teach I am continuing to grow in my skills and my comfort in front of the students. The better instructor that I am the better my students will be able to learn. It is okay if my lessons do not go as I planned but it is not okay for me to stop trying to reach every student. It also effected the learning of my students because as shown by their independent work they learned about the food groups and making healthy choices. This contributes to teaching students that are well rounded.

In the future I will take what I learned from this experience and use it in the next lesson I plan. I will also continue to keep my lessons focused to the needs of my students.

O1 – Offer and organized curriculum aligned to standards and outcomes

O₁ – Offer and Organize curriculum aligned to standards and outcomes

     Standards in education are important because they keep a common ground for teachers and students. Standards allow us to better plan lessons to benefit the student’s needs. The artifact that represents this standard is the objective that we wrote in class as practice for when we write lesson plans in the future. The objective that I wrote aligns with the State Standards for Second Grade Social Studies: “Civic 1.2.1 understand the basic organization of government in the community.

       

    This objective aligned to the content standard demonstrates my emerging competency on the principle of O1 because I am gaining competency in writing lesson plans and writing objective as you can see in my artifact. By gaining this competency I am gaining more experience with lesson planning and am becoming better accustomed to working with this standard which when mastered it will prove to be a great asset within my career

    In practicing writing objectives aligned to content standards. I learned how to write a proper objective and how to incorporate verbs from the different levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. I also learned that there should be an observable outcome. I learned that a good objective should follow the following format: Students will demonstrate and understanding of content standard by Bloom’s verb, observable action.  You can see that I followed this format in my artifact above. Teachers should be using different levels of Bloom Verbs in their objectives because they show the different levels of understanding and mastery that we want students to show for different subjects.

   The implications of writing objectives in this manner on student learning are that the students will have a clear goal as to what they are supposed to achieve by the end of the lesson or unit. The best way to success is to set goals. When you have a vision in your mind of what you need to accomplish you can achieve much greater. They will also be able to self- assess and self-regulate their own learning, which is a valuable skill for future learning. As teachers we should be interested in making our students good lifetime learners not just while they are in our class.

   In the future I plan to learn more about lesson planning and about writing appropriate objectives as this is just the start of my experience with these materials. I plan to get much more practice in writing standards and in lesson planning in order to make me into a valuable asset to my students in their learning. I will do this be planning lessons that enable the students to learn and master the state based education standards.