Standard 3 - Demonstrates competence in planning and preparing for instruction.
As a career teacher I know and care about my students in order to engage them in learning. I try my best to connect learning to my students’ prior knowledge, backgrounds, life experiences, and interests. I connect subject matter to meaningful, real-life contexts. I use a variety of instructional strategies, resources, and technologies to meet the diverse learning needs of the students that I am working with. I promote critical thinking through inquiry, problem solving, and reflection. Finally I monitor student learning and adjust instruction while teaching.
There is no “one size fits all” model in the elementary classroom. I realize that not every student benefits from the same instructional strategies. Some of my students prefer oral instruction, others are more successful if they are able to observe modeled instruction, and others thrive when there are opportunities for hands-on learning. I embrace this challenge by exposing my students to activities that are rooted in all three learning styles. In today’s ever-changing world, there are extensive opportunities to infuse new instructional strategies within the classroom. Within my day-to-day instruction, I implement instructional strategies that meet the needs of my students.
While I provide varied approaches to my instruction, I believe my students are active participants in their own learning processes. Therefore, my instruction is meticulously planned and aligned to national and state standards but it is also highly personalized. I believe in connecting the curricular content with my students’ day-to-day lives outside of my classroom. Yet, in the same way that every student is unique, so too is the personality of every classroom of learners year-by-year. An instructional strategy that resonates with my classroom of learners in 2014 may be irrelevant to my class in 2015. Instructional flexibility is an essential component of my practice.
On a day-to-day basis, I implement a wide range of instructional strategies that encourage student ownership of the learning process. My students engage in whole-class, small group, partner, and individual learning environments over the course of any given week. Woven within all of my instructional strategies, regardless of the learning environment, are higher-order questions and scenarios requiring student-led critical thinking skills. For example, while reading independently, my students’ use Post-It notes with higher-order questions aligned with Bloom’s Taxonomy to ensure full engagement with the text, bolster critical thinking skills, and improve comprehension skills. While conducting hands-on experiments in science, my students work in small groups to answer guiding questions in a collaborative learning environment.
In order to ensure my instructional strategies are effective in meeting the unique needs of my students, I am continuously assessing student learning, gauging overall levels of engagement, and differentiating my instruction accordingly. My students who struggle with basic comprehension questions respond to Post-its aligned with Bloom’s foundational levels of questioning. Those who comprehend basic questions with ease respond to questions requiring their analysis and synthesis of the text. While collaborating during our science labs, my students engage in constructive dialog to draw collective conclusions. Differentiation in both scenarios allows for further personalization and encourages student ownership of the learning process.
In order to determine the success of my instructional plans, I consistently assess my students’ progressions towards a mastery of the content. Inclusion of assessment within my instructional plans is essential because it provides me with data that I can use to determine if I appropriately met the standards and lesson objectives. Without assessment, I cannot paint an accurate picture of my students’ progression towards an attainment of the standards. Based on the results of my assessment, I modify and adjust my instruction accordingly, re-teaching or accelerating my pacing as needed.
When developing my instructional plans for reading, I establish clear alignments with the Iowa Common Core State Standards and the curriculum’s performance objectives. Every lesson includes multiple opportunities for me to assess my students’ progress including formal written assessment and informal oral assessment. Additionally, I include opportunities for differentiated instruction based on previously collected assessment data. I utilize one-on-one conferencing as well as small-groups to provide appropriate challenges for my students.
To learn anything it helps to: hear it, see it, ask questions about it, discuss it with others, do it, do it, teach it and then…reflect on it.