Standard 4: Instructional Strategies
"The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students' development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills."
As a teacher, the primary goal is to keep students motivated in their learning and engaged in key lessons that they believe to be relevant to their lives. My teaching style reflects using several different instructional strategies, methods, and problem-solving opportunities so that students can grow as learners and have success in the classroom.
As a teacher, the primary goal is to keep students motivated in their learning and engaged in key lessons that they believe to be relevant to their lives. My teaching style reflects using several different instructional strategies, methods, and problem-solving opportunities so that students can grow as learners and have success in the classroom.
Artifact Descriptions
One artifact I have included to represent Standard 4 is a copy of a seven day literature circle lesson plan. I planned and taught this literature circle during a fourth grade internal clinical at Gage Elementary. The featured book in the literature circle was Fever 1793. Each day of the literature circle, each student had a different assigned job that they were responsible for. The students read the majority of the book outside of class or during their free read time in the classroom, and then completed these jobs when the literature circle group met. Another artifact I have included to represent this standard is a lesson plan that I created that shows the use of technology within my instruction. I taught this science lesson to a third grade class at Kasson-Mantorville Elementary. The lesson shows the use of the SMARTboard during the lesson as well as chromebooks.
Analysis |
Synthesis |
The literature circle learning segment gave students a specific job that they were responsible for each day of the segment. The lesson plan I created for this literature circle shows my ability to encourage the students to think on a deeper level while reading through the novel. The students were asked to illustrate, predict, and summarize. The students were also asked deeper-level thinking questions throughout discussion when the literature circle met.
The science lesson I provided in artifact 2 shows my ability to encourage students development of their technological skills. The students were asked to independently research two questions on their chromebooks and record what they found in their notebooks. This instruction promotes the students to be responsible for their learning as well as developing their performance skills. |
After completing the literature circle, I felt I gained a lot of feedback from the students on what they liked and did not like. The students that I worked with did not mind being pushed to think critically about the novel, the part in which was supposed to be the most difficult. The job the students did not respond well to was illustrating what was going on in the novel. I do believe I would use the literature circle option if placed in an upper elementary classroom in the future. For the most part, the students completed their jobs independently. It was a great way to promote the students deeper thinking when reading a text.
After teaching this science lesson with a technology-base, my confidence in teaching technology-based lessons has soared. As iPads and chromebooks become more popular in elementary classrooms, I will use the experience I gained when completing this artifact to be a technology-savvy teacher. |