The teacher understands how children learn and develop, and can provide learning opportunities that can support their intellectual, social, and personal development.
A thorough knowledge of how students learn and develop is critical to teaching success. Teachers need to be familiar with the research base in this area and be able to use it as a basis for lesson planning and application. As educators, we all must be conscious of the developmental level and needs of the entire group of our students individually and collectively.
APPLICATION
Actual observation of students in classroom settings combined with extensive instruction help to ground each prospective intern in learning theory and its application. Requiring classroom observations at different levels (primary/intermediate; middle/high school) provide the prospective intern with practical experiences in real-life school settings.
Interns begin the SIMAT program asking the following two questions: "Who am I as a learner? and How do I learn?" FLEXMAT students consider these questions throughout their preliminary coursework. It is important that as teacher educators we see ourselves as learners and assist our students as they analyze this process from a teaching-learning perspective. It is not long before the interns change their question focus to children. This change in focus is the result of their observations and in one-on-one work with individual children during the SIMAT summer program or FLEXMAT community participation requirement. As a result of these interactions with individual children, interns then ask the questions, "Who are the learners? How do they learn?"
ARTIFACTS
II-1 Math
Attributes – Lesson Plan
This is the second lesson plan about attributes that I wrote and taught. The first one was not on an accurate level for the first grade class. In this reworked lesson, I used examples and words that were more appropriate for the students. By recognizing the problems of the first lesson I was able to adjust the information so that it was on the students' level. By rewriting and teaching this lesson I addressed the intellectual and developmental levels of the students. Also, by rewriting the lesson on an accurate level I show that I understood the level of the students.
-Darryl Matthews
II-2 Social Studies – Jigsaw Activity
In this social studies lesson, I offered a jigsaw activity where each child was an "expert" from a home group and was responsible for researching information about the state of Maryland. I used cooperative learning in this lesson because research has shown that the children need to have a personal relationship with the teacher and to interact with peers while learning academic content (Johnson & Johnson). I found that the children role playing teachers to instruct their groups were motivating to other students. It also strengthened interpersonal skills of students, especially one who had been a reluctant speaker in our classroom. She successfully taught her group and received a warm applause from her team members. Team members' praise and support reinforced her leadership role. After the end of the activity students wrote a short reflection: What contribution did I make to help the team achieve its goal and how well did I do it? What can I do better next time? It strengthened interpersonal skills of students as each child self-assessed his/her behavior. -June Han
II-3 Macbeth – Handout and Journal Reflection
Intellectually, most of my 12th grade Honors class perceived issues in a concrete and one-dimensional fashion. In order to help them understand the powerful, multifaceted themes in Macbeth, I jump-started the unit with an activity called "The Bump-Off." This activity enabled the students to extrapolate an important theme – raw ambition and its consequences – from a modern day Shakespearean dilemma to which they could relate. As a result of this activity, they were able to take a concrete story and draw from it an abstract concept. -Laurel Williams
II-4 Induction Seminar – Research Paper
This artifact is a
research paper completed for Induction Seminar, the final course in the Masters
Program. This course is completed after the internship and acts as a support
structure for first year teachers. An understanding of special needs students
and effective teaching strategies is paramount in the minds of new teachers.
This paper helped this recently certified teacher to explore and address issues
in her classroom. -Katherine Patti