Standard 2

Demonstrates competence in content knowledge appropriate to the teaching position.

Students compared and contrasted birds and bats after reading about them in our literature anthologies. 

a. Understands and uses key concepts, underlying themes, relationships, and different perspectives related to the content area.

This year was a good learning year for me, and I am excited to be able to explore more about the ideas and concepts next year. I will be able to create more projects and collect more books that go with the themes so that students have more exposures to reading and science.

b. Uses knowledge of student development to make learning experiences in the content area meaningful and accessible for every student.

(2017) In order to protect students privacy I did not display the below names in this chart. Below each standard and teachers name, there is a list of students that will meet with that teacher on a specific standard.
Our grade level team decided to help students improve in math skills by dividing students based on their needs. We chose to use our curriculum standards as our guide to what skills we need to address. Our district uses the Everyday Mathematics series. These assessments were used to group students. This way we are able to focus on skills that each student needs. In class we will cover the the content, but in each group we are able to dive in and help students in their deficits. Math is difficult for some students. We want to help teach students stratagies and skills to make math more meaningful and understandable.For this particular quarter 3, I am teaching students "Touch Math". This makes adding and subtracting more tactile. It helps students that have a hard time with working memory. Students are able to draw dots on the numbers so that they can add and subtract more easily. Some students need a visual and this helps give them a strategy. It is helpful for those facts that they can not use fingers to count ( 6 + 8,  or 7+ 9)

c. Relates ideas and information within and across content areas. 

d. Understands and uses instructional strategies that are appropriate to the content area.

(2011)This is one of the slides from a mimio presentation that I created to help teach "Holidays Around the World" to my students. This is a large unit that our first grade classes spend a good chunk of time on. Each of the pictures is a link to an online resource to help model the different components of each cultures way of celebrating. I created this mimio to resemble a virtual tour of the big points the culture celebrates. This helped students see how customs are connected and to our own and made the experience hands on. I also included books to read during this time and activities to do for students to gain more experience.

(2017) I was beyond thrilled when we adapted the Wonders series for the 2016-2017 school year. The series is for reading. Each unit has an "Essential Question". Each week also has an "essential question" that is related to the theme. The books through out a Unit are connected and work together. Each week there are also books that are all connected with a similar theme or concepts. I love that we are also able to read and spell the same words in the books that we are teaching and using in class. This means that students are hearing similar concepts in the books, and also hearing and seeing the same words. Students need multiple exposures to words and ideas before they are able to grasp and understand.

Our grade level team also connected the reading content to our science and social studies. This means that students can read about animals and engage in content for reading, and the same theme can be carried over for our science and writing time.

(2011)I chose this artifact to demonstrate how I make learning experiences more accessible and meaningful. One of our word work projects is to create our sight words for the week with play dough. Students and I develop the list and read the words together. Then I have students read the word back to me aloud. After, students will create their words with play dough at their seats to help make the spelling connection. This is meaningful for all students because it allows my students with an IEP to still be successful at creating the words even though using a pencil is difficult for them.

(2012) In our science standards and benchmarks in quarter 3 it says  "Discover that environments support the life of different types of plants and animals through the provision of light, water, and nutrients." It also has "Draw to convey learning." For writing process standards it states "With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question." Then in quarter 2 we have a reading standard that asks students to classify words into conceptual categories.

To make the most of our time I combined the writing and science. Through out the quarter we looked at animals from different habitats and discussed why those animals lived in that area. I had students read about the different animals in articles and books that we found in our schools library. The idea of animals was used in our writing activities, reading activities, and even in our math activities when we looked at different animal weights.

For the final project students were asked to create a realistic picture of a habitat and show what animals live there and explain why the animal would be found in that habitat. After presenting their project the class was asked to grade the presentation. Before grading we discussed what each number represented and students helped create the criteria of a "good" presentation. This was one of my first attempts at trying this type of rubric. After grading others presentations I asked students to reflect on their own group work and tell me if their group worked well together or not.

(2016)      https://docs.google.com/a/fairfieldsfuture.org/document/d/1yS72FoLMG3_AUwCfMDuU8XDkoOxKqo-NE_a_wGV1xXo/edit?usp=sharing

This is a link to my final from my science course NGSS Science Integration. The purpose of the class was to introduce us to the "New" science standards and then teach us ways to connect the science content to reading and writing. My final was to create a timeline of how and when I would teach the science standards. Fairfield Schools adopted the Wonders Reading Series (in 2016) so I linked the standards with the different chapters I would be teaching students in the Wonders Series. This made sense to me since a lot of the in class reading directly correlated to the science standards. This would help teach science as well as bring reading to life by doing experiments or activities that paired with the theme or book.

(2019) I enjoy teaching students how to use technology in class. I normally have my students write letters to kindergarteners telling them all about first grade. This time I chose to incorporate the too and have students create a google.doc for their letter to the kindergarteners.  Students first had to write their letter on paper. Then I taught then how to access google.docs through their school email. From there students typed their letters. For those students who finished early, I was also able to instruct them through adding a picture to their document. Students enjoyed the project and after asked when we can write on the computers again.

(2012) During this walk-through performed by the principal, I was teaching students the importance of re-reading as a strategy to increase students fluency and accuracy. I was modeling how to do this by using a book that I had previously read in the past and discussed how I could read the words better, since I understood what the story was about. I asked students why they thought this strategy was important and   how they could utilize it on their own. After this mini lesson students were dismissed to their stations in order to start reading to self or listening to reading. 

https://docs.google.com/a/fairfieldsfuture.org/file/d/0BxU0ncIPGuG3OGpubXN0eW9VZFE/edit?usp=sharing

02/20/2018 -

This is a screen shot from my walk through in Feb. 2018. I was teaching using the West Virginia Phonics lesson plans. During this lesson I was teaching phonics using tiles for students to identify the phonemenes in words. Then students were asked to identify the vowel sound and declare if it was a short or long vowel sound. I have learned a lot about teaching phonics over the past few years and one of the best strategies is teaching students how to stretch out the sounds in a word using their fingers. This helps students think about the parts of the word and helps them spell words phonetically.