Standard 4 - Learning Environment

This is a lesson plan I used in my student teaching which focuses on current events surrounding climate change.  In this lesson, I have students work in groups of 3-4 to read through various relevant articles and recognize main points throughout.  Each group's article is different based on skill level, and each group was arranged to have students with high executive functioning skills to work with students of lower executive functioning skills.  This helped to differentiate article difficulty and properly challenge each student depending on their skill-level.  The opportunity for students to work in groups helped to facilitate sharing of various perspectives and develop connections between student lives and the current topic of the lesson.  

This lesson demonstrates the ability to have students work effectively in small groups and my ability to differentiate the lesson based on student skill level in a group setting.  (4C) "understands how to help students work cooperatively and productively in groups".

This is an essay I wrote for Educational Psychology focusing on intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, and how each affect student development in the short-term and long-term situations.  As a teacher, it is crucial to continually reinforce intrinsic motivation and develop a classroom environment that fosters this form of motivation on a daily basis.  Numerous research articles have highlighted the importance of intrinsic motivation in a classroom setting and the many benefits of long-term success that stems from it.  This is a strategy I plan to utilize in my classroom as it will help with overall student development beyond the school year.  (4D) "understands factors (e.g., sefl-efficacy, positive social interaction) that influence motivation and engagement.