InTASC+1


 * "He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying." ****- Friedrich Nietzsche (1b) **

//InTASC Standard #1: Learner Development //

As a teacher, it is essential that I comprehend the physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development of my adolescent students in order to properly meet their individual needs during these critical years of transition (1e). Considering that I will be interacting with a range of students from sixth to twelfth grade, every student I encounter will be developing varying skills at different rates inside and outside my classroom. As such, it is essential that I attend to each difference across all spheres of development by noting each student’s status in each stage of development.  During adolescence, especially middle school, physical maturation occurs causing extreme variances among students of the same sex and age, let alone of the opposite sex or different age group. These differences in height, hormone and testosterone levels, muscle development, and other physical changes cause students to become preoccupied with their appearances. In addition, adolescents are restless because of the energy their body is producing to grow. One method I can adopt in my classroom to help students relieve their pent-up energy is to allow students a form of exercise at the beginning of each lesson. These activities could range from something as simple as standing and walking around the room to a dramatic improvisational activity.  Regarding their cognitive development, adolescents are shifting from the concrete-operational stage to the formal operational stage, meaning that students’ abilities to use abstract reasoning are developing. Since I am an English teacher, I can model abstract reasoning for students by connecting themes across multiple texts and relating the themes to student’s lives and experiences. For students to apply their formal operational skills, students can independently create alternative projects that portray and make a statement or claim about a theme from a novel read in class. For example, students could read Othello and construct a painting accompanied by a 1-2 paragraph paper that explains the theme the painting is intended to express as well as what statement the painting makes about that theme.  While some areas of the brain are notably developing, other areas are not as developed. For example, the prefrontal cortex has not fully developed in adolescents and thus they often experience emotions that fluctuate in a volatile manner. During my observations in class I have seen my mentors model happy personas for their students; additionally, they avoid using criticism when responding to student participation; instead, my mentors will note a positive aspect of the student’s response or ask prompting questions to lead a student to a justifiable answer. By encouraging students I can help promote a positive classroom community so that students will feel comfortable.  Socially, adolescents begin their search for identity and start to care more about their acceptance among their peers rather than adult figures. In my classroom I can provide my students with numerous activities where they can share different aspects of their self and history. Additionally, I can incorporate a class discussion circle into my instruction so that students are able to share their opinions, learn about others, and positively critique and applaud their peer’s work in a conversational setting. Discussion circles also encourage students to work collaboratively and comfortably with all of their peers, instead of gravitating to a small niche of classmates (1j).  My goal when designing lesson plans and unit plans is to meet all of my student’s needs within the English subject. In order to meet the student’s ranging needs I plan to use the affective teaching method in my classroom, maintaining that concern for student attitudes, feelings, and emotions are important facets of the learning process. I believe students learn best when they are exposed to new information that instigates an emotional response and causes a personal discovery of meaning, rather than information that is unrelated to student lives and emotional states of being. For example, when students are shown an image of an elderly person dealing with joint pain and instructed to describe it, it is likely the students will not connect to the image and thus the learning will not be permanent. In contrast, if students are shown an image of superheroes, they are likely to connect to the image and integrate the learning into their long-term memory. Affective teaching works with cognitive learning theory in that both suggest students are selective about what they process and learn, enforcing my conviction to provide instruction that is heavily influenced by student interest.

Artifact Description: What is this artifact? This artifact is a child study that I completed during my internship at Fallston Middle School on one of the students in one of my 8th grade English Language Arts classes. The Child Study includes three classroom observational notes completed by myself, observational notes on the student filed by my mentor, observational notes on the student filed by the student's Special Educator, an observation of the student in an out-of-school activity, notes from a discussion with the student's guidance counselor, and notes on the student's cumulative folder. Also included are articles that address some of the cognitive challenges the student struggles with in school; these articles were chosen in order to help generate activities and resources to aid the student. Finally, there are reviews on the two articles as well as a reflection on the Child Study project.

How does this artifact demonstrate evidence of my mastery of the InTASC Standard? This artifact demonstrates my proficiency in InTASC 1: Learner Development as it required me to observe, analyze, and define the way(s) in which the student struggled within the English Language Arts classroom in order to research and develop strategies to promote the student's comprehension and achievement. From the beginning of my observations, it was evident that the student was a socially adept and studious individual. However, the student demonstrated an inability to recognize and recall words on a consistent basis. As evidence of his hard work-ethic the student consistently received high marks across all subjects; however, the student's grades would significantly drop if he was required to read independently or if additional assistance was not provided by the Special Educator and/or instructor. After speaking with the guidance counselor and observing the student's cumulative folder, I learned that the student's disability was directly attributed to a lack of cognitive development; the reason for the lack of development was unclear. Discussions with the student's Special Educator as well as the articles I read provided insight on how to aid the student.

In what way did this artifact contribute to/relate to positive impact on student learning during my final internship?  The article I found on how word decoding skills impact memory suggests that students should be taught to focus on learning how to decode the meaning of words in order to increase their comprehension. Additionally, the article found that students with background knowledge on a topic demonstrated significantly greater comprehension of a reading than students without such background knowledge. The second article emphasized teaching students to value of reading comprehension over reading fluency. Upon reading these articles, I concluded that the student I chose for my child study would likely benefit from a focus on re-reading and word decoding. Adapting these methods into my instruction for the student and his peers positively impacted the students' learning during my final internship. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: left;">How does this artifact demonstrate the Planning-Teaching-Learning cycle? <span style="color: #ff4400; display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: left;">This child study demonstrates the "judging prior knowledge," "planning" and "teaching" components of the Planning-Teaching-Learning cycle because it shows my ability to understand my students and their needs through continual observations and discussions in order to plan and implement lessons that will aid the students in present and future classroom lessons. <span style="color: #ff4400; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: center;">Click the link "Child Study" below to view the artifact related to this Principle.

<span style="color: #ff4400; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">Child Study

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