Standard 2. Teachers have a deep content knowledge base sufficient to create learning experiences that reflect an understanding of central concepts, vocabulary, structures, and tools of inquiry of the disciplines/content areas they teach.
Teachers…
2.1 know their discipline/content areas and understand how knowledge in their discipline/content area is created, organized, linked to other disciplines, and applied beyond the school setting
2.2 design instruction that addresses the core skills, concepts, and ideas of the disciplines/content areas to help all students meet Rhode Island’s learning standards
2.3 select appropriate instructional materials and resources (including technological resources) based on their comprehensiveness, accuracy, and usefulness for representing particular ideas and concepts in the discipline/content areas
2.4 engage students in a variety of explanations and multiple representations of concepts, including analogies, metaphors, experiments, demonstrations, and illustrations, that help all students develop conceptual understanding
2.5 represent and use differing viewpoints, theories, and methods of inquiry when teaching concepts and encourage all students to see, question, and interpret concepts from a variety of perspectives
Artifact #1: Penguin Research Collaborative lesson plan, Penguin Wonders, Research Web, ThinkLink example, Buncee example
Description:
The Penguin Research lesson was a trimester long collaborative project between myself and the 2nd grade classroom teachers. We worked together to give students the opportunity to learn how to conduct research through a reliable and age-appropriate database – PebbleGo. Then students learned how to organize their research in a web and type this information into a Google Doc. Lastly, students learned to present their research through either ThinkLink or Buncee – both online creation and presentation tools.
How artifact demonstrates meeting the standard:
This artifact demonstrates meeting standard 2 because through this lesson and collaborative experience, I taught students how to conduct reliable and useful research, how to organize their research, and finally how to share their research ethically and in an exciting format. Students learned how to ask questions in the wondering stage. Students found their answers through videos, books, databases, and reliable websites. Students learned new technology to share their information through online tools such as ThingLink or Buncee.
Why I chose this artifact:
I chose this lesson to demonstrate mastery of standard 2 because this lesson encompassed teaching core research skills through videos, books, and the PebbleGo Database. This lesson also involved us all learning ThinkLink and Buncee together, which I found to be a great exercise to demonstrate to students that we are all life-long learners, including me. This lesson also gave me an opportunity to show how to find images to use in an ethical manner through an advanced Google image search. I feel it is important for students to learn as early as possible about copyright and fair use laws in a real-world scenario, such as searching for images to use in a project.
Artifact #2: Exclamation Mark lesson plan, Exclamation Worksheet, Punctuation Worksheet, Punctuation Booklet
Description:
Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld, is about an exclamation mark, who in the beginning of the story, feels alone, different, and wants to fit in. Eventually he meets question mark and they discover together how exciting it can be to be different. Through humor, students learn about punctuation, but more importantly, students learn about being yourself, being proud of being different, embracing who you are, and supporting one another’s differences.
Throughout the read aloud, students are asked to give examples of when to use an exclamation mark, question mark, or period to further assess their knowledge of punctuation marks. After the read aloud, students design an exclamation worksheet to communicate how they stand out (how they are unique). In the following class, students show what they learned with a punctuation worksheet and booklet.
How artifact demonstrates meeting the standard:
This artifact demonstrates meeting standard 2 because through this lesson students meet RI state standards in learning how to read with expression, based on ending punctuation. In addition, students learn what punctuation to use for different types of sentences to meet their writing standards.
Students were fully engaged throughout this lesson, by sharing ideas verbally and in drawing during the lesson. Students were also given many analogies to help them fully understand concepts throughout the lesson – punctuation, personification, and celebrating differences.
Why I chose this artifact:
I chose this lesson to demonstrate mastery of standard 2 because this lesson was fun and engaging to teach with my first grade students. Exclamation Mark is a wonderful story to teach punctuation in a fun way, but more importantly, to teach students about celebrating differences and finding their own unique qualities. I was surprised to hear how confident students were to celebrate their differences and I enjoyed hearing all their unique qualities throughout both first grade classes.