Standard 2
"The teacher uses understanding of individual differences and diverse cultures and communities to ensure inclusive learning environments that allow each learner to reach his/her full potential."
My Interpretation: The teacher recognizes and respects individual differences and diverse cultural backgrounds, and creates an inclusive learning environment that supports every student in reaching their full potential.
Artifact 1: Annual IEP
Indicator: 2 (f) Access resources, supports, and specialized assistance and services to meet particular learning differences or needs.
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Introduction to Artifact: This artifact is from an annual IEP meeting I attended. In this meeting, we discussed what had worked well in a classroom setting for this student and talked about their behavior in class. We also wrote and reviewed with one another what we could further implement or continue to implement to support them.
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Rationale: As I mentioned in the introduction, we discussed the different methods working for this student and what we, as staff, could continue to implement to support this student. In the accommodation section, we discussed what accommodation we felt the student had achieved and no longer needed. We also adjusted one of their accommodations to make it fit the level that they were at more. We also discussed the different behaviors this student was showing and used as a premise to discuss how we, as staff, could support him. We accept these students' strengths and weaknesses and are working as a collaborative team to help them so they can reach their fullest ability. In this meeting, the special education teacher was present and was an excellent resource for us as a team to come up with strategies together to meet this student's learning differences and to develop accommodations. These examples highlight how we use the resources as these students' teachers and meet them where they are.
Artifact 2: Guided Notes
Indicator: 2(a) Designs, adapts, and delivers instruction to address each student’s diverse learning strengths and needs and creates opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning in different ways.
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Introduction to Artifact: These are the notes from Lesson 4.6. These are guided notes that I create for my students when I teach them a new concept. With this lesson in particular, we had just learned each of the different operations with rational numbers separately. This lesson was taking all those operations and putting them together. When the students receive a copy of these notes, they only have the starting equation and the different steps. The rest of the notes we will complete together. The examples to try are the ones that they try on their own or with a partner, where I walk around the room to see how they comprehend the material. The examples to try are just different problems similar to the ones we completed together.
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Rationale: As you can see from my artifact, each problem is broken down into steps. I do it this way: to work them up and slowly do it as a whole. It allows them to see the different steps that go into one problem and how they need to attack it. As you can also see, the notes are color-coded. Each letter that we are substituting in for is a different color. I find that this helps students differentiate the different terms in the equation. As the guided notes continue, the problems continue to work upon one another. They start with the simplest and get harder as the notes go on. What you don't see in this lesson, because I am doing it while I'm talking, is the rundown I complete on a problem once we have completed it together. I go back through the steps, explaining the words verbally. Through the color-coded notes, opportunities that students have to apply their new knowledge, and verbalizing the different problems, I deliver and adapt my instruction to make sure that all students can learn from it.