3. Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
Teachers employ effective curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices for English language learners and possess knowledge of the content taught in schools.
Standard #3 addresses my ability to know the content, and how to effectively teach the content to students. My coursework has introduced me to effective frameworks such as Understanding by Design, Universal Design for Learning, and Gradual Release of Responsibility, which are great frameworks not only for ELLs, but all students in the classroom. Below you will find artifacts demonstrating my abilities to know the content I am teaching, to plan effective lessons and units, and to assess students' understanding of content and language.
Artifact 1: Contemporary Issues Unit Outline (Attached Below)
This artifact is from my semester student teaching, and shows my knowledge of constructing overall unis and curriculum. The World History Department at Cardinal Heights Upper Middle School has created an aligned curriculum that we meet about almost weekly. While we have an aligned curriculum, each teacher has the ability to modify lessons and lesson sequences based on their teaching style and the needs of their students. From this I was able to plan lessons with specific scaffolds for ELL students and students in special education.
Artifact 2: ESL Lesson Scaffolds (Attached Below)
This artifact is an assignment from my Language Acquisition in Content Areas course, which was part of my ESL course sequence at Edgewood College. The assignment was to design language and literacy supports and scaffolds for a lesson or unit. The scaffolds includes are for a American Civil War unit for a middle school class (7th or 8th grade), which demonstrate my knowledge and attention to language acquisition and how students learn and build language and literacy skills.
Artifact 3: Intro to Imperialism Instructional Materials (Attached Below)
This artifact is from my student teaching experience where I taught a mini introduction unit to imperialism (artifact 3). This document includes the key instructional materials for the unit, which includes graphic organizers for vocabulary and for a primary source analysis stations activity. The vocabulary organizer demonstrates my ability to connect to student background knowledge or culture by providing students a chance to include examples, analogies, and visuals to help them understand and remember the vocabulary. The graphic organizer for the primary source stations activity breaks down the primary source analysis into concrete sections, which helps ELLs, students in special education, and students who struggle with reading and writing. These instructional materials demonstrate my ability as a teacher to include language and literacy scaffolds for ELLs and others who may need support.
Artifact 4: Intro to Imperialism Unit (Attached Below)
These are the lessons plans for the Intro to Imperialism Unit from my student teaching experience. The instructional materials for these lessons are also attached (artifact 2). These lesson plans incorporate various strategies for engagement, including station activities and interactive online discussions, which allows students to work with peers and use their background knowledge and skills to help them demonstrate their knowledge and skills for this unit. These lessons include strategies and supports for language and literacy, which support ELLs and others who may need support.
Artifact 5: Russian Revolution Debate Prep Sheet (Attached Below)
This artifact is a graphic organizer that was given to students for the end of the unit debate assessment for the Russian Revolution. This is a graphic organizer I put together to help students prep for the debate, which is focused on answering the question "Were the Russians justified in their revolution". Students are to take a side by selecting one of the two topic sentences at the top of the debate prep sheet. Then the students went through their class resources to find evidence. The graphic organizer is specifically set up to help students frame their arguments and to help them construct a paragraph they will write after the debate. This tool was given to all students, but the intention was to create a graphic organizer with scaffolds to help ELL students and students in special education.