Standard 8
The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to access and appropriately apply information.
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My Interpretation: The teacher uses a range of teaching strategies to help students deeply understand the content, see how ideas are connected, and develop the skills to find and use information effectively.
Artifact 1: Instructional Decision Making
Indicator: 8 (b) Continuously monitors student learning, engages learners in assessing their progress, and adjusts instruction in response to student learning needs.
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Introduction to Artifact: This PDF document describes two instances when I adjusted my instruction and the reasons for doing so. The instructional decision-making is part of my teacher work sample.
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Rationale: The first example was close to the beginning of module 4, and my teacher's work sample. While I was completing lesson 4.2 with my students on adding rational numbers, they were required to find common denominators and then simplify their answers. They got the general concepts of the lesson, but when it came to simplifying and finding common denominators, they were really struggling. Instead of pushing them through, I decided to take a day and do a review of simplification and finding the least common denominator. These are skills that will be built upon as the module progresses, so it's important that the students have an understanding of these concepts. The second example was at the end of my teacher work sample. It was right after we had completed lesson 4.6, which combined operations with rational numbers. I normally have them complete the practice worksheet that is provided with the lesson because it is structured well and allows the students to practice the content they just learned, but in this instance, the practice worksheet was confusing them. I decided instead to have the students throw it, and created a review for them that would be more beneficial to them. Both of these times, I took the students ' self-evaluation and what I was observing in the classroom and modified my instruction to meet their needs.
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Artifact 2: Video analysis with TWS Lesson Plan 4
Indicator: 8 (i) Asks questions to stimulate discussion that serve different purposes, (e.g., probing for learner understanding, helping students articulate their ideas and thinking processes, promoting risk-taking and problem-solving, facilitating factual recall, stimulating curiosity, and helping learners to question)
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Introduction to Artifact: An assignment we had to do for our teacher work sample was a video recording of our lesson. With this video recording, we had to self-evaluate ourselves. The video I chose to record myself teaching was lesson 4 of my teacher work sample. This lesson was on subtracting rational numbers.
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Rationale: One of the sections on the self-analysis sheet asked if we provided guided questions and wait time to allow students to answer questions on the notes. This is one of the things I incorporate into every lesson that isn't written in a lesson plan. As you'll see on the self-evaluation sheet, I gave myself a five on all of those categories. I set up step-by-step guided notes that constantly encouraged the students to walk through the steps with me by asking questions. If the students don't answer after a set wait time, I will rephrase the question and ask again. I think by having them talk out the steps and answer questions, it helps them learn the information better.