The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students' development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.
Teachers meet the needs of diverse learners in part by applying a wide variety of teaching strategies. Through the use of multiple strategies the teacher must help students move from basic recall to higher order thinking, problem solving, and application.
MAT coursework stresses the importance of developing an extensive repertoire of teaching techniques. Development and presentation of the portfolio underscores this need and provides a way of evaluating these techniques beyond daily feedback of the mentor/supervising teacher and regular observations of the university supervisor and coordinator.
The SIMAT program exists in a problem-based environment. Interns create questions based on their observations and experiences with children and seek solution to those questions, which serve to create additional questions of theory and "best practice" strategies. FLEXMAT students and interns are given extensive written direction designed to enhance their field experience visits and, ultimately, their teaching techniques. Expert mentors throughout their internship carefully supervise both SIMAT and FLEXMAT interns.
I
found my tenth-grade General Biology students to be very energetic, but they
seemed to expect the material to be "spoon-fed" to them, and very few
took responsibility for their own learning or the learning of those around
them. For this reason, two other teachers and I cooperatively planned a number
of discovery activities in which the students rotated in groups to centers and
actively explored fossil evidence. -Renee Strode
When
my students think about things from other perspectives they tend to obtain a
new deeper meaning to their learning. The lesson I taught on ancient Egypt
required students to problem solve a situation from another's point of view. I
asked two students to read a script to the class as if they were the Queen and
Pharaoh of ancient Egypt. The class was divided into groups as if they were the
Queen and Pharaoh's wise counsel. The script posed a problem for the counsel to
solve. While working collaboratively in these groups the students used their
critical thinking skills to solve the problem and then shared their work with
the class. While observing my lesson, my university supervisor commented on the
success of the lesson and how involved the students were in their learning. -Timothy Brocato
While
at Celebration School, I collaborated with three Johns Hopkins interns to
create and implement a three week interdisciplinary, problem-based unit
revolving around a bacterial outbreak in a restaurant. This artifact shows how
I applied my knowledge of Dimensions of Learning and the problem-based learning
approach to this unit. (a) I obtained this web from a colleague and used it to
design appropriate and effective instruction that addressed each aspect of the
problem-based learning approach. (b) This artifact includes numerous and
specific instructional strategies I used to promote critical thinking, problem
solving, and performance skills. For instance, students were grouped into
"Investigation Teams" in which each student was given a role in
solving the bacterial outbreak. The teams had many tasks, including forming a
hypothesis about which of three bacterium could have caused the outbreak, and
supporting that hypothesis with accurate information. These tasks were
open-ended and required the students to collaborate and conduct appropriate
research in order to solve a situational real-life problem. This is one team's
science write-up which was evaluated as "fluent" in every category on
the assessment rubric. The write-up reveals the level of critical thinking and
problem solving skills that were necessary to successfully complete the tasks. -Michael
Gonzalez
To
help meet several different goals in a third grade classroom, I created this
working, instructional bulletin board. It was first thought of as a way to help
students become familiar with MSPAP vocabulary words. However, it had several
other purposes. Among those purpose were additional seatwork, empowering
students to become responsible for their own assignments, and providing further
activities in areas that students have worked.
-Russell Leone