2. Content Area and Pedagogical Knowledge

This lesson was a part of our unit on presidential powers, and was designed to teach executive privilege by looking at the events of the Watergate scandal and Nixon's subsequent resignation. The lesson is unique in that the majority of the content is presented through primary source accounts (minus the last clip, but that is mainly for dramatic effect). I provided the necessary context, but the sources spoke for themselves.

By teaching this lesson through mostly primary source accounts, it shows my ability to use "technology to support instruction and enhance student learning" (2L), and create "learning experiences to develop students skills in the application of technology appropriate disciplines" (2L). I could have easily explain the events of the Watergate scandal to students, but made the decision to enhance my classes experience by providing primary source accounts.

Primary sources are essential to studying history, and this lesson plan is important to me because it gives an example of how I incorporate them into curriculum. This lesson is also important because it shows how I am able to adapt a lesson between classes. As seen through my reflection, this lesson did not go over well in my first class, but I was able to make changes for when I taught it later in the day. 

The artifact above was created during a course I took that focused on literacy across different disciplines. The assignment required that I do research on reading in my content area, and then summarize/review my findings.

Through this assignment, it shows that I understand "the relationship of knowledge within the disciplines to other content areas and to life applications" (2D). The skills that the articles listed can all be used across different disciplines, and by teaching them I can provide my students with skills that can further assist the outside the social studies curriculum.

This artifact is an important part of my portfolio because I feel that as an educator it is my job to teach students skills that they can use outside my classroom. All of the strategies I discussed in the paper, going over vocabulary, researching context, and checking for understanding are all things that my students can use outside of my classroom.