Standard 1: Learner Development
The teacher understands how students learn and develop, recognizing that patterns of learning and development vary individually within and across the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical areas, and designs and implements developmentally appropriate and challenging learning experiences.
Artifact 1: Teacher Work Sample (TWS)
The teacher understands how students learn and develop, recognizing that patterns of learning and development vary individually within and across the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical areas, and designs and implements developmentally appropriate and challenging learning experiences.
Artifact 1: Teacher Work Sample (TWS)
Description: The Teacher Work Sample (TWS) is a requirement for student teaching. It shows the student teacher’s ability to design a unit of five to seven lessons that includes learning goals, a design plan for instruction, assessment plan, the lessons with student work, analysis of the student's work, and a reflection. My TWS was on the Civil Rights Movement. I created the learning goals based on the Maine Learning Results for Social Studies. I designed a pre-assessment that was aligned with the learning goals and was able to begin planning for instruction with the pre-assessment results. My TWS consists of five lessons and several different types of assessments.
Rationale: This artifact aligns nicely with standard one as understanding learner development is the cornerstone of the Teacher Work Sample assignment. The TWS begins with the contextual factors analysis where I did research on the community, district, school, and students. This helped me know what social, economic, and community backgrounds my students were living with at home, at school, and in the community. Then I had to give a pre-assessment so that I would be aware of what the students knew already about the Civil Rights Movement. While creating my lessons, I always accounted for multiple accommodations and modifications. I believe that writing each lesson and reflecting on students learning development is really where this artifact aligns with standard one most. Without the TWS I am not sure that I would feel as competent in this teaching standard.
Artifact 2: Formative Assessment Tracker
Description: The “formative assessment tracker” is a chart that I used to track each student’s success in formative assessments and learning goals from lesson to lesson.
Rationale: This was an extremely helpful tool in mastering standard one because it kept me organized throughout the students’ learning progress. It served as a visual guide to the students’ learning development. As we moved from lesson to lesson, we got deeper and deeper into more thematic-based history and concepts that were more abstract than usual. It was important for me to see if they were continuing to meet the standards, even as the content became more advanced. If I found that they were dropping off, I could intervene at various levels, depending on what each student needed at the time.