O2- Offer appropriate challenge in the content area.
Teacher-candidates plan and/or adapt curricula that are standards driven so students develop understanding and problem-solving expertise in the content area(s) using reading, written and oral communication, and technology.
This means that as a teacher, I design and adapt my instruction, based on the standards, to give students multiple pathways of success. My instruction challenges students to use reading, written and oral communication, and technology in order to problem-solve and demonstrate their understanding.
In concluding and reviewing the topic of transformations in my 8th grade algebra class, I designed a lesson plan which gave students multiple ways of articulating their knowledge, while challenging them to work with transformations using multiple perspectives.
Specifically, this lesson had the following objectives. Students will write the learning target in their journal (read/write), use the learning target to remain on task during group work (reflect/problem-solve), discuss the learning target and why it is important during the closing discussion (oral communication), and finally, demonstrate proficiency by completing the exit ticket (graphing, written communication).
After teaching this lesson, I learned about the differences of my students’ learning styles and the methods they prefer in demonstrating their understanding. In the future, I plan to use similar strategies for effective lessons on other topics. In addition, I will use give students more freedom of choice (differentiation by interest) in demonstrating their understanding.