Standard 4-Educational Practices That Foster Learning, Development, and Achievement For All of The Nation’s Children

Maria Sideri
EDU 448 Elementary Education Portfolio Development
Fall 2011
Wheelock College Standard for Educator Preparation Programs

Standard 4. Educational Practices That Foster Learning, Development, and Achievement For All of The Nation’s Children

Educators should use teaching strategies and educational practices that develop children’s capacity to think critically, analytically, and imaginatively, and extend their knowledge and understanding of the world. They should provide multiple ways for children to deepen their grasp of concepts, stretch their thinking, express their understanding, and learn critical skills. They should search for appropriate materials, experiment with new technologies, collaborate with specialists and colleagues, and consult with families and community members to meet the instructional needs of all their students. Educators should establish caring, inclusive, stimulating, and safe learning communities in which all children feel they belong, and in which they can assume responsibility, take intellectual risks, make mistakes, explore alternatives, participate in decision making and work both collaboratively and independently. They should understand principles of effective classroom management as well as human motivation and behavior from the foundational sciences of psychology, anthropology, and sociology. They should understand cognitive processes associated with various kinds of learning and how these processes can be stimulated. They should also understand language development and the role of language in learning. Educators should understand principles and techniques, and advantages and limitations associated with various teaching strategies. They should be able to communicate effectively within many domains (oral and written discourse, mathematical/symbolic representation, non-verbal communication, audiovisual and computer-based technologies), and model effective communication strategies in conveying information and in asking questions.

Standard 4 of the Wheelock College Standards for Educator Preparation Programs is one of the most essential standards. The reason why this standard is so important to me is because it supports the educational practices that I have used and the lessons that I have implemented to foster learning, development and achievement for all students. Throughout my teaching experience, I have constantly tried to incorporate the multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983) that students exhibit in each of my lessons. While enacting these lessons, I have tried, to the best of my ability, to provide the students with multiple ways to grasp concepts, and multiple ways to think critically, analytically, and imaginatively to understand such concepts. Also, this standard is extremely crucial in the sense that in order for such lessons to be carried out, there needs to be effective classroom management. Teachers must also demonstrate their ability to communicate effectively.

I believe that I have achieved each aspect of standard 4. Beginning with the first part of the standard that explains using teaching strategies and educational practices that develop children’s capacities to think critically, analytically and imaginatively and extend their knowledge and understanding of the world. I believe that I have used and in some cases, mastered such teaching strategies. One of my favorite examples of developing children’s capacities to think critically, analytically and imaginatively is my lesson plan on Native American materials, crafts and artifacts. One of my social studies lessons challenged the students to think about materials and crafts that the Native Americans used, and where these materials came from. It was an introductory lesson to a two week unit on Native Americans. To stimulate their interest and to get them excited about learning, I brought in an authentic Native American traditional buckskin dress. (A relative of mine bought this traditional piece of Native American clothing at an auction, and I was lucky enough to have borrowed it from her to incorporate into my lesson). In this lesson, I introduced the traditional dress to the students by holding it up to them when they were sitting in a circle. I did not tell them it was a dress, instead, I told them it was an artifact, and I had them write down what they thought this artifact was, what they thought it was made from, what animal some of the materials came from, and how they thought this artifact was put together. This allowed the students to think critically, analytically and imaginatively. This lesson is shown in artifact 4.1.

The way that my supervising practitioner set up her classroom in my practicum was very creative. There were no desks in the classroom, just tables, and each table had a specific purpose. For example, during Reading Workshop and Writing Workshop, my teacher set up centers for the students to work independently at and in small groups through. For most of September and October during Reading Workshop, the students focused on an author study of Tomie dePaola. During the one hour block of Reading Workshop each day, the students rotated through stations completing learning activities involving Tomie dePaola and the book he wrote that we read that morning before Reading Workshop. Each center focused on a different intelligence and integrated multiple subjects. For example, one center focused on painting with watercolors because Tomie dePaola’s illustrations are created using watercolors. In another center, the students were writing in their reading journals about their favorite part of the book we read, and at another center students were working with vocabulary from the story to help them build their phonics and spelling knowledge. These different centers are shown through the work provided from each center by the students. A sample of student work from the art table is provided in artifact 4.2.

In the third part of this standard, it explains that it is important to collaborate with specialists and colleagues in order to meet the instructional needs of the students. I believe that I have achieved this through the workshop I attended with the literacy coach. I was assigned to lead a reading group during my practicum, and I really needed to know how I could effectively lead the students in a meaningful way incorporating strategies that would help them read as well as motivating them to read.. This workshop was very informative, and during my guided reading group, I felt very comfortable and prepared. Therefore, I believe that my participation in the literacy coach’s workshop effectively prepared me to meet the instructional needs of my students. My notes from the guided reading workshop serve as evidence of what I learned from the workshop. They are provided in artifact 4.3.

During my practicum, one of the most wonderful aspects of my classroom was that it had a strong classroom community. My supervising practitioner believed in a “no desk policy”, because she wanted each and every student to feel as though he or she had ownership over all aspects of the entire classroom. She used many positive discipline techniques and never raised her voice to a student or to the class. She is a very calm and friendly woman, and her personality is one of the reasons why the classroom was very caring, warm and comfortable. During my practicum, there was an intern that was also in my room every day. She and I noticed that at the beginning of the year, most students were very apprehensive when it came to spelling words they did not know or drawing things that they did not know how to draw. Whenever they spelled a word wrong, they would become completely withdrawn, or if they could not draw a picture they wanted, they would become extremely frustrated. Emily and I both came up with a lesson that we believed would help the students feel more comfortable in their classroom and during such work. We read the book, Ish, by Peter Reynolds to the students and had them complete a worksheet. The goal of this lesson was to have the students understand that trying your hardest and doing your best work is what is most important when it comes to writing new words and drawing new things. For example, we had students pick out of a hat an animal to draw, and then the students had to attempt to draw it. At the end of the paper we asked, “Did you do your best work?” and “Do you enjoy your drawing?” and if they answered yes to both they learned the lesson of the “Ish”. The students enjoyed this activity very much, and definitely became more comfortable in trying new things. Days after the lesson, I witnessed students struggling to spell certain words and then trying to sound them out on their own. One student explained, “I wrote my because-ish word as best as I could!” This lesson demonstrates one activity that helped create a comfortable learning environment. Artifact 4.4 shows the book we used to create this lesson.

One of the biggest challenges for the students in my classroom during my practicum was walking in line. It was a constant challenge for them to line-up to walk to recess, lunch, or any specialty class without two or more students getting into an argument about something. Therefore, during one morning meeting, I explained to the students the Four Problem-Solving Steps that I read about in Positive Discipline: In The Classroom (2000) by Jane Nelson, Lynn Lott, and Stephen Glenn. This book was extremely helpful to me in the area of classroom management. Nelson, Lott, and Glenn explain that, “Often difficulties arise in the classroom that can be easily handled outside the class meeting but that still allow the students, rather than the teacher, to take responsibility for their behaviors” ( p. 193). The Four Problem-Solving Steps are when dealing with a problem are: 1) The student should either ignore it, 2) talk it over respectfully with every person involved, 3) agree on a win-win solution, or 4) put the problem on the class meeting agenda. The problem of cutting in line and fighting over position in line was happening so frequently that we went right to step 4 and put the problem on the class meeting agenda. At the class meeting, we generated rules for the line and weekly themes for a variety of ways in which we could line-up including height or birth date information. My notes from this class meeting are shown in artifact 4.5.

I also achieved the part of standard 4 related to understanding the cognitive processes associated with various kinds of learning very quickly in my practicum. During math, it was clear to me that some of the first graders did not have the cognitive ability to add or subtract mentally. Therefore, I used math chips as manipulatives for the first graders. They were very helpful in aiding the first graders in counting because they made the abstract task of mental math more concrete. They helped promote understanding. A worksheet that was aided by counting chips is shown through artifact 4.6.

After taking Human Growth and Development and The Nature of Linguistic Knowledge, I have discovered that bilingualism and bilingual education is rather complex. Throughout these courses, I learned how special and important bilingualism can be to students. I have also learned that one’s mother language should be embraced and recognized as central to one’s identity. It should be recognized as one is attempting to learn English.. Therefore, if English is the only language spoken in the classroom, it is important for the students to know that we as teachers and the whole classroom value the languages our students speak.. It is also important to understand that some children may need lots of practice with learning language, especially the children who speak their first language at home. Therefore, it is important to be aware of language behavior that may occur in bilingual or multilingual students. Such behavior includes code switching. This is explained by Laura E. Berk in Development Through the Lifespan, (year of publication) when she states, “Like many bilingual adults, bilingual children sometimes engage in code switching- producing an utterance in one language that contains one or more “guest” words from the other. In doing so, they do not violate the grammar of either language. Children may engage in code switching, because they lack the vocabulary to convey a particular thought in one language, so they use the other. But the children who code-switch the most are those whose parents often do so” ( p. 317).Therefore, I recorded who the bilingual students were in the classroom by completing the student inventory checklist for, the The Teaching and Learning of Elementary Education course at Wheelock. This checklist allowed me to keep in mind the students who are bilingual in order to have an understanding of their behavior, such a code switching, and in order to meet their needs more effectively. My student inventory checklist is shown through artifact 4.7. Because of privacy issues among families, this artifact can not be shown with family background information filled in, but a blank template of the one that I used is what is shown in artifact 4.7.

In understanding the principles, techniques, advantages, and limitations of various teaching strategies, the first thing that comes to my mind is whole class versus small group instruction. For one of my lessons on the pottery of Native Americans, I knew I wanted the students to be introduced to the pottery as a whole class lesson. This is because I knew that if I were to introduce it to a small group first, students may wander over and disrupt the lesson in their eagerness to see it. Therefore, I introduced the artifact to the whole class first, and then called them over by small group to complete a worksheet I created about the pottery artifact. This way, the students would not get distracted, and as a small group, I could ensure they were truly achieving the goal of the lesson. This lesson’s success depended on my knowledge of how and when to use grouping strategies. Also, the direction in this lesson was not lost on the students although it was whole class. I wanted to make sure that the students were all following directions of how to use pottery and did not feel overwhelmed so I wrote out directions and drew pictures for each table of students to look at. This is shown through artifact 4.8. Through this artifact, classroom manage was kept under control and the lesson was a successful, whole class lesson.

Being able to communicate effectively with the students within many domains is something I believe I have achieved related to standard 4. I know this because of the feedback I have received from the supervisors during my pre-practicum and practicum. During my practicum, my supervisor informed me that I communicate well with the students during my lessons. She noted that I have a good memory because I remember every comment each individual student makes and I refer back to these specific comments directly. My supervisor explained that this engages the students in a lesson, because it shows that I am listening and that their comments drive the conversation and discussion within a lesson. Her comments about my communication skills are evident in the report that she wrote during a social math lesson that I taught during my practicum that is shown in artifact 4.9 Also, during my practicum, my supervisor informed me that I have well developed questioning techniques. I ask the right kind of questions during my lessons that lead to student thinking. She noted that by asking the students, “What do you notice?” I was drawing out what the students knew in a simple way that was not intimidating and in a way that welcomed all responses. This report by my supervisor is evidenced in artifact 4.10.

Overall, standard 4 of Wheelock College Standards for Educators is a standard that I am comfortable in saying I have fully achieved. Using strategies that guide children to think critically, analytically, and imaginatively is something I will always incorporate into lesson plans. Providing children with multiple ways to approach topics by understanding their multiple intelligences is something I will also constantly take into account while teaching. Also, by creating a comfortable and safe learning environment through positive discipline, I will be able to communicate effectively with all of my students in an environment that is conducive to risk-taking and to learning.

References

Nelson, J., Lott, L., & Glenn, S. (2000). Positive discipline in the classrom: Developing mutual respect, cooperation, and responsibility in your classroom. (3rd ed.). New York,Ny: Three Rivers Press.