2. Content Area and Pedagogical Knowledge

On March 20,  the second grade class did a fun Grammar Talk for morning work. This Grammar Talk was to encourage and motivate the students to be comfortable in identifying pronouns and nouns. Some students may feel unsure and a great way to practice key skills is to continue using the skills and content taught and just always practice.  This image that is connected to the Grammar Talk Activity shows how instead of using paper to write down their answers, the students were encouraged to work as a group and a spokesperson from the group would come up and write the correct word in the correct column.  The student reviewed the word with the team and then the selected student came up to the Ben Q Board to write the answer down. The students very much enjoyed this experience. They were engaged and all participating! 

This artifact demonstrates and expresses the student's skills and practicing what was learned as it will encourage their reading and writing.  I wanted to encourage my students and have them further develop skill sets by incorporating alternative methods of communication.  In this lesson, it was specifically through the use of public speaking rather than the more traditional approach of writing their responses using paper and pencil. The students were encouraged to use technology to practice the skills and material being taught. The students demonstrated this by digitally organizing their writing in a chart.  This artifact shows the importance and understanding of the performance indicator 2L. This indicator states, "uses technology to support instruction and enhance student learning" (2L). The quote that is selected from this performance indicator expresses how important it is for students to engage with technology and use it to support and further their learning, their development of set skills and strategies. The students were successful and demonstrated great skill of how to use nouns and pronouns overall.

The students were able to utilize nouns and pronouns successfully in their writing activity that was completed in a later activity. The students were engaged with one another and expressed great confidence as they completed their Grammar Talk. As a teacher, an educator who is passionate in reaching all of my students, I find it important to use technology to motivate students to engage and interact with the material being in taught. The students enjoyed walking up to the front, sharing and discussing with their peers how and why is the chosen word a pronoun or a noun. It is important to me to find way unlimited ways in reaching my students and engaging them with technology to boost confidence, collaboration with peers and successfully mastering set learning target and skills.

This artifact is a lesson plan on: What is the Earth's Surface? It was created on March 20th 2023.  This artifact was created to express and demonstrate the importance of curricular content and to encourage the needs of the students are met with the teaching resources and materials needed for success. This lesson was created for the students to get introduced to the importance of the Earth's Surface and how the students can obtain information using the resources given. The students were able to use the resources given and create wonderful and engaging science talks with one another on the topic of Earth's Surface. The students were able to exchange information with one another and use the resource of the textbook as evidence to support their thinking and reasoning. This lesson plan contains learning targets and objectives set as well as hands on activities for the student to understand and develop set skills and strategies of the information being taught.

This artifact is connected with 2I. The lesson plan created, expresses and connects well with indicator 2I because it shows evidence of how students are engaged with the resources given for the students to master in meeting learning objectives and standards. The students were able to pull terms such as landforms, bodies of water and so forth from the textbook and use as they paired and shared with one another to express their thinking. A chart was created of important vocabulary where the students were also able to pull important terms to use as they worked through their activities. The students created deep thinking during their activities of which activated their overall learning and knowledge built. The students were able to use the content from the textbook, our science talk to successfully use knowledge taught and follow instruction to be successful in the activities given.  Indicator 2I expresses, "evaluates teaching resources and materials for appropriateness as related to curricular content and each student's needs;" (2I).  The lesson started out with students exploring and inquiring, "what would you do if you were looking down on Earth as an astronaut, what would you see?" Students being engaged in this discussion led to more learning and being able to connect thoughts with content being taught from the science textbook as well as the hands on activities that were created for the students.  The indicator shows progress of meeting the standard because the content is taught to meet the students needs and to create successful content using teaching resources and materials created.

This artifact that I created is important to my development as a teacher because of the flexibility and inquiry that is encouraged within the lesson. When I created this lesson, I created it to allow all of my students to be engaged and participate with support of resources and materials. For example; during our science talk, the students were enjoying their science conversations by supporting one another with reasons, examples of what they would see if looking down on Earth from up above. This type of lesson is important to me as an educator because students learn through having all kinds of resources and or materials available to them to connect with their thinking. Laying out an introduction, a foundation of important elements and vocabulary can build on skills and knowledge for all learners.